January
73. A Bourgeois Document
January
transformation of the courts, is borne out by the following recent decree of the Ministry of Justice:
"Bv the general ordinance of October 8 of this year, my predecessor in office has already called attention to the fact that it is the prime task of the judicial authorities to maintain respect for the law and its effective action, that they can best serve their country by fulfilling this task, because true freedom can flourish only on the basis of law. Since then, unfortunately, in many places there have occurred very serious outbreaks of an anarchist activity which mocks at law and order; in some parts of the country even violent revolts against the authorities have taken place and have not everywhere been energetically countered. In view of such a regrettable state of affairs, I now, after His Majesty's Government has taken a decisive step to save the state, which has been brought to the brink of the abyss, I now address myself anew to the judicial authorities and the Public Prosecutors of the whole country, to request them to do their duty everywhere and without regard for persons. Whoever the guilty person may be, he must not escape the legal punishment that has to be brought to bear in the speediest possible way.
"With especially deep regret I have been compelled to note, both from individual reports of the provincial authorities and from official newspapers, that some judicial officials also, unmindful of their special professional duties, have in part let themselves be carried away into committing obviously illegal actions, and in part have not shown the courage and fearlessness through which alone terrorism could be successfully countered. I expect steps to be taken in regard to them also, with establishment of the facts and if necessary the institution of a judicial investigation, without lenience and with the utmost expedition, for officials responsible for the administration of justice, who are entrusted with preserving the prestige of the laws, have by their own violation of the law been doubly at fault; and it is especially necessary to expedite the proceedings against them because the operation of the law must not be allowed to remain in the hands of such officials. If among those guilty there are officials in respect of whom, on the basis of existing regulations, a formal investigation cannot be made, or on whom suspension from office, which must always be considered as a duty in cases of this kind, cannot be imposed without higher authorisation, then steps must be taken to establish the facts in order to justify the investigation without a special instruction, and after that the requisite permission obtained as speedily as possible. With regard to candidate assessors and junior lawyers attending the courts, it must be borne in mind that there are special rules governing their dismissal from state service.
"The illusion deliberately fostered by many persons: that the hitherto existing criminal laws, particularly those concerned with crimes against the state, are no longer valid since March of this year, has greatly contributed to increase anarchy and has perhaps also had a dangerous influence on individual courts. In view of the excellent state of mind of the Prussian judicial officials, which on the whole they still display, it suffices to point to the well-known juridical principle that laws remain in force until annulled or modified through legislation, as well as to the express provision of Article 108 of the constitutional document of the 5th of this month, in order to be assured that the honourable Prussian judicial officials, in their whole-hearted interest for true moral and political freedom, will put above everything the prestige of law and order.
brave Frankfurt deputy — that wickedness and gross violence should continue to exist among us.
"The presiding judges of the courts, and also the Prosecutor-General in Cologne, should accordingly instruct the officials of their departments to do what is necessary, and keep me informed in respect of which officials, and for what offences, suspensions are being pronounced and judicial investigations instituted.
Berlin, December 8, 1848
Minister of Justice Rintelen"
If one day the revolution in Prussia is victorious, it will not find it necessary, like the February revolution, to abolish the irremovability of the older class of judges by a special decree. It will find this caste has given documentary evidence of the renunciation of its privilege in the authentic declarations of the Rhenish Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court in Berlin, and the Courts of Appeal in Bromberg, Ratibor and Münster.
Written by Marx about December 23, 1848
MEASURES AGAINST GERMAN REFUGEES.—
RETURN OF TROOPS FROM TESSIN.—
THE PATRICIANS' COMMUNE
Berne, December 24. The new measures of the Federal Council, which are so gratefully recognised by the Empire, do not merely consist of the circular and Steiger's journey of inspection[3]; they consist in particular of the expulsion from Switzerland of three absolutely non-dangerous refugees who published an absolutely blameless, merely informative pamphlet about the latest rising in Baden,(1) and furthermore of the steps taken against the newspaper Die Revolution and against the so-called Hilf Dir military association.[194]
The volunteer commander, J. Ph. Becker of Biel, who has been a citizen of the Berne canton for the past year, was the head of a military organisation of the above name, which is said to have had the aim of organising all the German volunteers living in Switzerland into a German Legion. It seems a dangerous business but was not really so at all. The Legion only existed on paper; there was no question of weapons, still less of drilling; its only object was to hinder more over-hasty and unplanned volunteer campaigns, and since all these are necessarily over-hasty and unplanned — as is proved by the two of Lucerne, the two of Baden, and the one of Val d'Intelvi[195]—the military association would inevitably have led to the prevention of such volunteer campaigns altogether. For that reason neither the Baden nor the Swiss Government had anything to do with it, and as the leaders of the organisation owing to all sorts of beloved memories of all secret societies as well as to more or less bragging behaviour gave the Government a pretext for intervening; and as, moreover, the whole plan came under the Berne law on volunteer insurgents, there was the best possible opportunity to see here a far-reaching conspiracy and preparations for a new attack on Baden in the near future. Added to this was Becker's indiscretion in announcing, on the title page, his weekly Revolution as the "organ of the democratic military association 'Hilf Dir[3]". That was enough: Herr Ochsenbein, who by chance or intentionally came to Biel, brought about the intervention of the public authorities. The specimen issue of the Revolution was seized, one of the editors, Michel, banished from the canton, and Becker's house searched. After that there were second thoughts. The attack on the freedom of the press was too provocative. The distraint was again lifted, and the Revolution will continue to appear(2); but a judicial investigation against Becker has begun, and it will probably be the end of the military association " Hilf Dir''. The German imperial philistine can once more sleep in peace.
In Tessin, all the troops have been discharged. The extent to which the Tessiners were slandered by the East Swiss is shown by the excellent understanding between the Bernese battalion sent there and the population. It is true, of course, that this battalion began by behaving quite differently from the men of Zurich and Appenzell. At one of the banquets given to the officer corps, Colonel Seiler of Berne declared that neutrality was a necessary evil, and that he looked forward to the time when the Swiss, free from these fetters, would fight for liberty in the ranks of the other peoples. The battalion collected a day's pay as a contribution for the refugees from Italy. If the gentlemen from Zurich and Appenzell had acted in the same way instead of taking pleasure in fulfilling odious gendarme functions and fraternising with Austrian officers, the Tessiners would have given them a very different reception.
Some days ago there was a highly amusing meeting of philistines in Berne. The residents' commune met to decide whether they wanted to take over the burden of being the seat of the Federal Government. The patricians, beaten in the last burghers' commune meeting,(3) and seeing with their own eyes that the property dispute between the burghers and the residents was really beginning, wanted to have their revenge here. With the actual handing over of the property of the residents' commune the town was made independent of the patriciate, they lost a large number of lucrative posts and the main
74. A New-Year Greeting
props of their overwhelming influence in the Commune Council, not to mention the direct heavy financial loss. So they launched into all their intrigues in order — to remove again the seat of the Federal Government from Berne! They declared that the costs of the seat of the Federal Government had been stated so uncertainly that there was a risk of being shamefully cheated by the Federal Council. Further, the state and not the town should bear the bulk of the costs; and under these pretexts they proposed to grant a miserable 300,000 francs, but no more. The law concerning the seat of the Federal Government demands however unreserved acceptance of the conditions within a month, and the month expires on December 28. The acceptance of the proposals made by the patricians was thus equivalent to a refusal to make Berne the seat of the Federal Government. The patricians' plausible proposals for economy and safeguards met with tremendous approval from the Berne philistines, so that the radicals who wanted à tout prix to keep the federal capital there almost despaired of succeeding in their object. It was debated all day, and not till evening did the radicals collect 419 votes against 314 for the unconditional acceptance of the obligations proposed by the Federal Assembly. There you have an example of the petty parochialism which dares to try to lay down the law, even in the capital city of Switzerland!
Written by Engels on December 24, 1848
LETTER OF THE CENTRAL COMMISSION OF THE WORKERS' ASSOCIATIONS IN SWITZERLAND
TO THE ASSOCIATION IN VIVIS
TO THE ASSOCIATION IN VIVIS
Friends, Brothers,
We, the Central Commission set up by the Congress, have before us for reply your letter of December 7.'Since the Congress has now established the foundations for the unification of the various associations, we shall not deal with your reproaches to the Zurich Association l97 but go straight on to answer the different points of your letter which concern the proposed centralisation.
You demand, first, that at the Congress the votes of associations given only by letter should be included in the count, justifying this by reference to the democratic principle. The Congress discussed this matter and also the reasons you give, but it believed that it could not accept them. It took the view that in that case no congress would be necessary and the associations would only need to send letters to the Central Commission, which could then add up the votes and proclaim the result. This is more or less the manner in which the associations have been in communication up to now and which yielded no results, while the Congress was easily able to put matters to rights in a few days. And this was because more can be achieved, and understanding can more easily be reached, in a few hours of oral consultation than by years of correspondence. Associations which send no delegates cannot, of course, take part in the debates of the Congress, they cannot hear what reasons for and against are being put forward, and since in the end these reasons decide the voting, they cannot, of course, vote either. Otherwise it would not be possible ever to reach a majority decision. If you think this is not democratic, we take the view that no democratic state in the world has ever accepted your opinion in this respect, but invariably taken ours: in America, in Switzerland, in France, as in all former democracies, the principle has always held good that those who send no delegates cannot vote either. Incidentally, the Congress has seen to it that in future every association can be represented by the Congress taking over the entire costs of the delegates. At this Congress, too, you could perhaps have been represented; Lausanne, which lacked the means to send a delegate, arranged for a citizen in Berne[3] to represent them and sent him his instructions.[198]
It is certainly to be regretted that up to now there has been so little unity among the associations in Switzerland, and also that so many contradictory proposals for the Central Association were put forward. For this very reason it was an excellent idea of the Zurich Association to suggest a Congress. The provisional regulations which it drafted were, of course, only a suggestion on which the Congress had to vote, and which it altered considerably, as you will see from the enclosed printed copy of the minutes. But now, when a beginning at least has been made through the debates of the delegates of ten different associations, it is most desirable that the unrepresented associations should adhere to the centralisation which has at last been started and that they should yield in the same way that almost every other represented association has yielded on one point or another of its opinion and submitted to the decisions of the majority. Without mutual concessions we can never achieve anything.
Your suggestion that the Executive of the "Hilf Dir" military association be proclaimed the Central Association was very seriously considered, but was rejected. The Hilf Dir military association is a banned association under the local laws (the law on volunteers) and thus all associations joining it as associations would likewise be in danger of being dissolved and deprived of their funds. Moreover, the military association will only take over the military organisation, but does not see it as its task to represent the associations also with respect to social-democratic propaganda and correspondence with Germany. The Berlin Central Committee and the Workers' Committee in Leipzig[199] would not be able to risk entering into correspondence with the military association, even on innocent matters, without exposing themselves to dissolution and arrest; and the other way round, the military association would likewise not be able to conduct a regular correspondence with these committees without exposing itself to the most persistent persecution by the Swiss authorities. Above all, however, we want a centralisation which does not give the governments any pretext for new persecutions of
Frederick Engels.—Ed.
a distance at which they could fire grape-shot, grenades containing 150 bullets, and shrapnel against pikes and scythes which, as is well known, cannot be effective at a distance. Previously shrapnel had only been fired by Englishmen against semi-savages in the East Indies. Only the stalwart Prussians, in fanatical fear of Polish courage and conscious of their own weakness, used shrapnel against their so-called fellow citizens. They had, of course, to look for a method of killing masses of Poles at a distance. Close to, the Poles were too terrible. Such was the glorious victory at Wreschen. But, as already stated, the heroic deeds of the Prussian army begin only after the war, just as the heroic deeds of the prison warder begin after sentence has been pronounced.
That this glory of the Prussian army will go down in history is guaranteed by the thousands of Poles killed with shrapnel, pointed bullets etc. as a result of Prussian treachery and black-and-white trickery, and by those later branded with lunar caustic.[216]
Adequate testimony to this second laurel wreath of the counter-revolutionary army has been provided by the villages and towns burnt by the Prussian heroes, by the Polish inhabitants beaten up and massacred in their homes with rifle-butts and bayonets, and by the acts of plunder and violence of all kinds committed by the Prussians.
Immortal glory for these Prussian warriors in Posen, who paved the way trodden shortly afterwards by the Neapolitan executioner,[3]
who battered with shot and shell his loyal capital city and allowed the soldiery to plunder it for 24 hours. [17] Honour and glory to the Prussian army for the Posen campaign! For it served as a shining example for the Croats, Serezhans, Ottochans[218] and other hordes of Windischgrätz and Co., who, as Prague (in June), Vienna, Pressburg etc. have proved, were inspired to be its most worthy imitators.
And, lastly, even this courage of the Prussians against the Poles occurred only owing to fear of the Russians.
"All good things come in threes." (1) Hence "My army" also had to win a triple glory. The occasion for it was not lacking. For "its participation in the maintenance of order (!) in South Germany won fresh recognition for the name of Prussia".
Only malice or an attempt at belittlement could make one deny that "My army" performed the most effective services as jailor and policeman for the Federal Diet, which modernised itself on being rebaptised and had itself called the Central Authority.[219] It is equally undeniable that the Prussian name gained full recognition in guzzling South-German wine, meat, cider etc. The starving Brandenburgers, Pomeranians etc. grew patriotic paunches, the thirsty ones refreshed themselves, and in general succeeded in polishing off everything that the South Germans who provided them with billets set before them with such heroic courage that the Prussian name has gained the most noisy recognition there. It is a pity that the billet money has not yet been paid; the recognition would be still noisier.
The glory of "My army" is really inexhaustible; nevertheless, one must not omit to mention that
"whenever I called, it stood ready, in complete loyalty and in complete discipline",
nor omit to communicate to posterity the equally remarkable statement that
"My army countered abominable calumnies by its excellent spirit and noble self-control."
How flattering for "My army" is this greeting, evoking as it does the pleasant recollection of its "complete discipline" and "noble self-control", and at the same time once more its heroic deeds in the Grand Duchy,[3] and furthermore the laurels it won in Mainz, Schweidnitz, Trier, Erfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Coblenz, Münster, Minden etc. We others, however, who do not belong to "My army", can in this way widen our limited conceptions as humble subjects. To shoot down old men and pregnant women, to rob (officially documented in the neighbourhood of Ostrowo), to maltreat peaceful citizens with rifle-butts and sabres, to destroy houses, to make attacks in the night on unarmed people with weapons hidden under cloaks, waylaying (recall what happened at Neuwied)—these and similar heroic deeds are termed in Christian-German language "complete discipline'(2)'' and "noble self'-control"] Long live self-control and discipline, since those murdered under this watchword are in fact dead.
The few passages of this royal Prussian New-Year greeting which we have touched upon here show us that this document in its significance and spirit is on the same level as the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick[6] about 1792.[220]
Written by Marx on January 8, 1849
75. The Magyar Struggle
Cologne, January. While in Italy the first counterblow is already being struck against the counter-revolution of last summer and autumn, in the plains of Hungary the last stage of the struggle to suppress the movement which arose directly out of the February revolution is being completed. The new Italian movement is the prologue of the movement of 1849, the war against the Magyars is the epilogue to the movement of 1848. Probably this epilogue will yet pass into the new drama that is being prepared in secret.
Like the first scenes of the revolutionary tragedy of 1848, which rapidly succeeded one another, and like the fall of Paris and Vienna, this epilogue too is heroic, and pleasantly heroic after the partly colourless and partly petty episodes of the period between June and October. The last act of 1848 passes through terrorism into the first act of 1849.
For the first time in the revolutionary movement of 1848, for the first time since 1793, a nation surrounded by superior counter-revolutionary forces dares to counter the cowardly counter-revolutionary fury by revolutionary passion, the terreur blanche by the
terreur rouge.[3] For the first time after a long period we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people dares to accept the challenge of a desperate struggle, who for his nation is Danton and Carnot in one person—Lajos Kossuth.
The superiority of forces is frightful. The whole of Austria, 16 million fanaticised Slavs in the forefront, against 4 million Magyars.
Mass uprising, national manufacture of arms, issue of banknotes, short shrift for anyone hindering the revolutionary movement, revolution in permanence — in short, all the main features of the glorious year 1793 are found again in the Hungary which Kossuth has armed, organised and inspired with enthusiasm. This revolutionary organisation, which on pain of utter ruin had to be completed, so to speak, in 24 hours, was lacking in Vienna, otherwise Windischgrätz would never have been able to enter it. We shall see whether he will succeed in entering Hungary in spite of this revolutionary organisation.
Let us take a closer look at the struggle and the combatant parties. The Austrian monarchy arose out of the attempt to unite Germany in a single monarchy just as the French kings up to Louis XI did in France. The attempt failed because of the pitiful provincial narrow-mindedness of both the Germans and the Austrians, and because of the corresponding petty commercial spirit of the Habsburg dynasty. Instead of the whole of Germany, the Habsburgs obtained only those South-German lands which were in direct conflict with the isolated Slav tribes, or in which a German feudal nobility and German burghers ruled jointly over enslaved Slav tribes. In both cases the Germans of each province required support from outside. This support they received through the association against the Slavs, and this association came into being through the union of the provinces in question under the sceptre of the Habsburgs.
That is how German Austria originated. It suffices to read in any textbook how the Austrian monarchy came into being, how it split up and arose again, all in the course of struggle against the Slavs, to see how correct this description is.
Adjacent to German Austria is Hungary. In Hungary the Magyars waged the same struggle as the Germans in German Austria. A German wedge driven between the Slav barbarians in the Arch-duchy of Austria and Styria went hand in hand with the Magyar wedge driven in the same way between the Slav barbarians on the Leitha. Just as in the south and north, in Bohemia, Moravia, Carinthia and Kraina the German nobility ruled over Slav tribes, Germanised them and so drew them into the European movement, the Magyar nobility likewise ruled over Slav tribes in the south and north, in Croatia, Slavonia and the Carpathian territories. The interests of both were the same; opponents of both were natural allies. The alliance of the Magyars and the Austrian Germans was a necessity. All that was still lacking was some great event, a heavy attack on both of them, in order to make this alliance indissoluble. Such an event came with the Turks' conquest of the Byzantine Empire. The Turks threatened Hungary and, secondly, Vienna, and for centuries Hungary came indissolubly under the Habsburg dynasty.
But the common opponents of both became gradually weak. The Turkish Empire became powerless, and the Slavs lost the strength to revolt against the Magyars and Germans. Indeed, a part of the German and Magyar nobility ruling in Slav lands adopted Slav nationality and thereby the Slav nationalities themselves became interested in preserving the monarchy, which had more and more to defend the nobility against the developing German and Magyar bourgeoisie. The national contradictions were disappearing and the
Habsburg dynasty adopted a different policy. The same Habsburg dynasty which had climbed to the German imperial throne on the shoulders of the German burghers became more decisively than any other dynasty the champion of the feudal nobility against the burghers.
In the same spirit Austria participated in the partition of Poland.[222]
The important Galician elders and army commanders, the Potockis, Lubomirskis and Czartoryskis, betrayed Poland to Austria and became the most loyal supports of the Habsburg dynasty, which in return guaranteed them their possessions against attacks from the lower nobility and burghers.
But the burghers in the towns continually grew in wealth and influence and the progress of agriculture alongside that of industry changed the position of the peasants in relation to the landowners. The movement of the burghers and peasants against the nobility became more and more menacing. And since the movement of the peasants, who everywhere are the embodiment of national and local narrow-mindedness, necessarily assumes a local and national character, it was accompanied by a resurgence of the old national struggles.
In this state of affairs, Metternich achieved his master stroke. With the exception of the most powerful feudal barons, he deprived the nobility of all influence on state administration. He sapped the strength of the bourgeoisie by winning to his side the most powerful financial barons — he had to do this, the state of the finances made it compulsory for him. Supported in this way by the top feudal and financial aristocracy, as well as by the bureaucracy and the army, he far more than all his rivals attained the ideal of an absolute monarchy. He kept the burghers and the peasantry of each nation under control by means of the aristocracy of that nation and the peasantry of every other nation, and he kept the aristocracy of each nation under control by its fear of that nation's burghers and peasantry. The different class interests, the national features of narrow-mindedness, and local prejudices, despite their complexity, were completely held in check by their mutual counteraction and
9» allowed the old scoundrel Metternich the utmost freedom to manoeuvre. How far he succeeded in this setting of one nation against another is proved by the Galician scenes of slaughter when the democratic Polish movement which began in the interests of the peasantry was crushed by Metternich by means of the Ruthenian peasants themselves who were animated by religious and national fanaticism.[223]
The year 1848 first of all brought with it the most terrible chaos for Austria by setting free for a short time all these different nationalities which, owing to Metternich, had hitherto been enslav-ing one another. The Germans, Magyars, Czechs, Poles, Moravians, Slovaks, Croats, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Ulyrians and Serbs came into conflict with one another, while within each of these nationalities a struggle went on also between the different classes. But soon order came out of this chaos. The combatants divided into two large camps: the Germans, Poles and Magyars took the side of revolution; the remainder, all the Slavs, except for the Poles, the Rumanians and Tr.ansylvanian Saxons, took the side of counter-revolution.
How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis? The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the nationalities in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death of all these nations, large and small.
All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and 1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality — the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary.
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary.
As for the Poles, we refer the reader to our article about the debates on the Polish question in Frankfurt.(1) In order to curb their revolutionary spirit, Metternich had appealed to the Ruthenians, a nationality differing from the Poles by its somewhat different dialect and especially by its Greek orthodox religion. The Ruthenians had belonged to Poland for a long time and learned only from Metternich that the Poles were their oppressors. As though in the old Poland the Poles themselves were not oppressed just as much as the Ruthenians, as though under Austrian domination Metternich was not their common oppressor!
So much for the Poles and Ruthenians who, moreover, because of their history and geographical position, are so sharply separated from Austria proper that we have had to get them out of the way first of all in order to reach clarity in regard to the chaos of the other peoples.
Let us, however, also remark at the outset that the Poles have revealed great political understanding and a true revolutionary spirit by now entering into an alliance with their old enemies, the Germans and Magyars, against the pan-Slav counter-revolution. A Slav people for whom freedom is dearer than Slavism proves its vitality by this fact alone, and thereby already assures a future for itself.
We pass now to Austria proper. Situated to the south of the Sudetic and Carpathian mountains, in the upper valley of the Elbe and in the region of the Middle Danube, Austria in the early Middle Ages was a country populated exclusively by Slavs. By language and customs these Slavs belong to the same stock as the Slavs of Turkey, the Serbs, Bosnians, Bulgarians, and the Slavs of Thrace and Macedonia; these, in contrast to the Poles and Russians, are called Southern Slavs. Apart from these related Slav nationalities, the vast region from the Black Sea to the Bohemian forests and Tyrolean Alps was inhabited only by a few Greeks in the south of the Balkans, and in the Lower Danube region by scattered Rumanian-speaking Wallachians.
Into this compact Slav mass a wedge was driven by Germans from the west and the Magyars from the east. The German element conquered the western part of Bohemia and pushed forward on both sides of the Danube as far as the other side of the Leitha. The Archduchy of Austria, part of Moravia, and the greater part of Styria were Germanised and thus separated the Czechs and Moravians from the inhabitants of Carinthia and Kraina. In the same way Transylvania and Central Hungary up to the German frontier was completely cleared of Slavs and occupied by Magyars, who here separated the Slovaks and a few Ruthenian localities (in the north) from the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and subjected all these peoples to their rule. Finally, the Turks, following the example of the Byzantines, subjugated the Slavs south of the Danube and the Sava, and thé historical role of the Southern Slavs was ended for
224 ever.
The last attempt of the Southern Slavs to play an independent part in history was the Hussite war,[225] a national peasant war of the Czechs under the flag of religion against the German nobility and the supremacy of the German Emperor. The attempt failed, and ever since then the Czechs have remained fettered under the yoke of the German Empire.
On the other hand, their conquerors — the Germans and Magyars — took over the historical initiative in the Danube regions. Without the aid of the Germans and particularly of the Magyars, the Southern Slavs would have become Turkish, as actually happened to part of them, indeed Mohammedan, as the Slavs of Bosnia still are today. And for the Southern Slavs of Austria this is a service which is not too dear even at the price of exchanging their nationality for German or Magyar.
The Turkish invasion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was a second edition of the Arab invasion of the eighth century. Charles Martel's victory was repeatedly rewon at the walls of Vienna and on the Hungarian plain. As then at Poitiers, and later at Wahlstatt, during the invasion of the Mongols,[226] there was here once more a threat to the whole of European development. And where it was a matter of saving this, how could it be achieved by a few nationalities, like the Austrian Slavs, which had long ago disintegrated and become impotent and which, moreover, themselves needed to be saved?
The situation internally was like that externally. The class that was the driving force and standard-bearer of the movement, the bourgeoisie, was everywhere German or Magyar. The Slavs could only with difficulty give rise to a national bourgeoisie, and the Southern Slavs only in quite isolated cases. And with the bourgeoisie, industrial power and capital were in the hands of Germans or Magyars, German culture developed, and intellectually too the Slavs became subordinate to the Germans, even as far as Croatia. The same thing happened — only later and therefore to a lesser extent — in Hungary, where the Magyars together with the Germans took the lead in intellectual and commercial affairs. But the Hungarian Germans, although they retained the German language, became genuine Hungarians in disposition, character and customs. Only the newly introduced peasant colonists, the Jews and the Saxons in Transylvania, are an exception and stubbornly retain an absurd nationality in the midst of a foreign land.
And if the Magyars were a little behind the German Austrians in civilisation, they have recently brilliantly overtaken them by their political activity. Between 1830 and 1848 there was more political life in Hungary alone than in the whole of Germany, and the feudal forms of the old Hungarian Constitution were better exploited in the interests of democracy than the modern forms of South-German constitutions. And who was at the head of the movement here? The Magyars. Who supported Austrian reaction? The Croats and Slovenes.
Against the Magyar movement, as also against the reawakening political movement in Germany, the Austrian Slavs founded a Sonderbund[227]—pan-Slavism.
Pan-Slavism did not originate in Russia or Poland, but in Prague and in Agram.[228] Pan-Slavism means the union of all the small Slav nations and nationalities of Austria, and secondarily of Turkey, for struggle against the Austrian Germans, the Magyars and, eventually, against the Turks. The Turks are only incidentally included here and, as a nation which is also in a state of complete decline, can be entirely disregarded. In its basic tendency, pan-Slavism is aimed against the revolutionary elements of Austria and is therefore reactionary from the outset.
Pan-Slavism immediately gave proof of this reactionary tendency by a double betrayal: it sacrificed to its petty national narrow-mindedness the only Slav nation which up to then had acted in a revolutionary manner, the Poles; it sold both itself and Poland to the Russian Tsar.
The direct aim of pan-Slavism is the creation of a Slav state under Russian domination, extending from the Erzgebirge and the Carpathians to the Black, Aegean and Adriatic seas — a state which would include, besides the German, Italian, Magyar, Wallachian, Turkish, Greek and Albanian languages, also approximately a dozen Slav languages and basic dialects. All this would be held together not by the elements which have hitherto held Austria together and ensured its development, but by the abstract quality of Slavism and the so-called Slav language, which is at any rate common to the majority of the inhabitants. But where does this Slavism exist except in the minds of a few ideologists, where is the "Slav language" except in the imagination of Herren Palacky, Gaj and Co., and, to some extent, in the old Slav litany of the Russian church, which no Slav any longer understands? In reality, all these peoples are at the most diverse stages of civilisation, ranging from the fairly highly developed (thanks to the Germans) modern industry and culture of Bohemia down to the almost nomadic barbarism of the Croats and Bulgarians; in reality, therefore, all these nations have most antagonistic interests. In reality, the Slav language of these ten or twelve nations consists of an equal number of dialects, mostly incomprehensible to one another, which can be reduced to different main stems (Czech, Illyrian, Serbian, Bulgarian) and which, owing to the total neglect of all literature and the lack of culture of the majority of these peoples, have become a sheer patois, and with few exceptions have always had above them an alien, non-Slav language as the written language. Thus, pan-Slav unity is either pure fantasy or—the Russian knout.
And what nations are supposed to head this great Slav state? Precisely those nations which for a thousand years have been scattered and split up, those nations whose elements capable of life and development were forcibly imposed on them by other, non-Slav peoples, those nations which were saved from downfall in Turkish barbarism by the victorious arms of non-Slav peoples, small, powerless nationalities, everywhere separated from one another and deprived of their national strength, numbering from a few thousand up to less than two million people! They have become so weak that, for example, the race which in the Middle Ages was the strongest and most terrible, the Bulgarians, are now in Turkey known only for their mildness and soft-heartedness and set great store on being called dobre chrisztian, good Christians! Is there a single one of these races, not excluding the Czechs and Serbs, that possesses a national historical tradition which is kept alive among the people and stands above the pettiest local struggles?
Pan-Slavism was at its height in the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Southern Slavs still held the whole of Hungary and Austria and were threatening Byzantium. If at that time they were unable to resist the German and Magyar invasion, if they were unable to achieve independence and form a stable state even when both their enemies, the Magyars and Germans, were tearing each other to pieces, how will they be able to achieve it today, after a thousand years of subjection and loss of their national character?
There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says,(2) these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.
Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745.
Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800.
Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos. Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the residual fragment of peoples, resulting from an extremely confused thousand years of development. That this residual fragment, which is likewise extremely confused, sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole European movement, which in its view ought to go not from west to east, but from east to west, and that for it the instrument of liberation and the bond of unity is the Russian knout—that is the most natural thing in the world.
Already before 1848, therefore, the Southern Slavs had clearly shown their reactionary character. The year 1848 brought it fully into the light of day.
When the February storm broke, who made the Austrian revolution? Vienna or Prague? Budapest or Agram? The Germans and Magyars, or the Slavs?
It is true that among the more educated Southern Slavs there was a small democratic party which, although not wanting to renounce its nationality, nevertheless desired to put it at the disposal of the struggle for freedom. This illusion, which succeeded in arousing sympathy also among West-European democrats, sympathy that was fully justified as long as the Slav democrats took part in the struggle against the common enemy — this illusion was shattered by the bombardment of Prague. After that event all the South-Slav races, following the example of the Croats, put themselves at the disposal of Austrian reaction. Those leaders of the South-Slav movement who continue to talk drivel about the equality of nations, about democratic Austria, and so on, are either stupid dreamers, such as, for example, many journalists, or they are scoundrels like Jellachich. Their democratic assurances have no more significance than the democratic assurances of official Austrian counter-revolution. It suffices to say that in practice the restoration of the South-Slav nationality begins with the most savage outbursts of fury against the Austrian and Magyar revolution, with a first great good turn rendered to the Russian Tsar.
Apart from the higher nobility, the bureaucracy and the military, the Austrian camarilla found support only among the Slavs. The Slavs played the decisive part in the fall of Italy, the Slavs stormed Vienna, and it is the Slavs who are now attacking the Magyars from all sides. At their head as spokesmen are the Czechs under Palacky, as leaders of armed forces the Croats under Jellachich.
That is the gratitude shown for the fact that the German democratic press in June everywhere sympathised with the Czech democrats when they were shot down by Windischgrätz, the same Windischgrätz who is now their hero.
To sum up: In Austria, apart from Poland and Italy, it is the Germans and Magyars in 1848, as during the past thousand years already, who have assumed the historical initiative. They represent the revolution.
The Southern Slavs, who for a thousand years have been taken in tow by the Germans and the Magyars, only rose up in 1848 to achieve their national independence in order thereby at the same time to suppress the German-Magyar revolution. They represent the counter-revolution. They were joined by two nations, which had likewise long ago degenerated and were devoid of all historical power of action: the Saxons and the Rumanians of Transylvania.
The Habsburg dynasty, whose power was based on the union of Germans and Magyars in the struggle against the Southern Slavs, is now prolonging the last moments of its existence through the union of the Southern Slavs in the struggle against the Germans and Magyars.
That is the political aspect of the question. Now for the military aspect.
The region inhabited exclusively by Magyars does not form even one-third of the whole of Hungary and Transylvania. In the area from Pressburg, northwards from the Danube and Theiss up to the rear of the Carpathians there live several million Slovaks and a few Ruthenians. In the south, between the Sava, Danube and Drava, there live Croats and Slovenes; farther to the east, along the Danube is a Serb colony of more than half a million people. These two Slav stretches are linked by the Wallachians and the Saxons of Transylvania.
On three sides, therefore, the Magyars are surrounded by natural enemies. If the Slovaks, occupying the mountain passes, were of a less lukewarm disposition, they would be dangerous opponents, in view of their region being excellently adapted for guerilla warfare.
As things are, however, the Magyars have only to withstand from the north attacks of invading armies from Galicia and Moravia. In the east, on the other hand, the Rumanians and Saxons rose up in a mass and joined the Austrian army corps there. Their situation is an excellent one, partly because of the mountainous nature of the country and partly because they occupy most of the towns and fortresses.
Finally, in the south are the Banat Serbs, supported by the German colonists, the Wallachians and also an Austrian corps, protected by the vast Alibunar morass and almost impregnable.
The Croats are protected by the Drava and the Danube, and since they have at their disposal a strong Austrian army with all its auxiliary resources, they advanced into the Magyar region already before October and now have little difficulty in holding their line of defence on the Lower Drava.
Finally, from the fourth side, from Austria, the serried columns of Windischgrätz and Jellachich are now advancing. The Magyars are encircled on all sides, and encircled by an enemy of vastly superior power.
The fighting is reminiscent of that against France in 1793, but with the difference that the sparsely populated and only half-civilised country of the Magyars is far from having at its disposal the resources which the French Republic then had.
The weapons and munitions manufactured in Hungary are bound to be of very poor quality; in particular, it is impossible for the manufacture of artillery to go ahead rapidly. The country is far smaller than France and every inch of territory lost is therefore a much greater loss. All that is left to the Magyars is their revolutionary enthusiasm, their courage and the energetic, speedy organisation that Kossuth was able to give them.
But for all that, Austria has not yet won.
"If we fail to beat the imperial troops on the Leitha, we shall beat them on the Rabnitz; if not on the Rabnitz, we shall beat them at Pest; if not at Pest, then on the Theiss, but in any case we shall beat them."[3]
So said Kossuth, and he is doing his utmost to keep his word. Even with the fall of Budapest, the Magyars still have the great Lower Hungarian steppe, a terrain as it were specially created for cavalry guerilla warfare and offering numerous almost unassailable points between the swamps where the Magyars can dig themselves in. And the Magyars, who are almost all horsemen, possess all the qualities needed to wage such a war. If the imperial army dares to enter this desert region, where it will have to obtain all its provisions from Galicia or Austria, for it will find nothing, absolutely nothing on the spot, it is impossible to see how it will be able to hold out. It will achieve nothing in a closed formation; and if it splits up into flying detachments it is lost. Its clumsiness would deliver it irretrievably into the hands of the swift Magyar cavalry detachments, without any possibility of pursuit even if it should be victorious, and every isolated soldier of the imperial army would find a mortal
From Kossuth's speech in the Hungarian parliament on November 9, 1848 (Közlöny, November 11, 1848).—Ed.
enemy in every peasant, in every herdsman. War in these steppes is like war in Algeria, and the clumsy Austrian army would require years to end it. And the Magyars will be saved if they hold out for only a few months.
The Magyar cause is not in such a bad way as mercenary black-and-yellowa enthusiasm would have us believe. The Magyars are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they will fall gloriously, as the last heroes of the 1848 revolution, and only for a short time. Then for a time the Slav counter-revolution will sweep down on the Austrian monarchy with all its barbarity, and the camarilla will see what sort of allies it has. But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.
Written by Engels about January 8, 1849
The colours of the Austrian flag.—Ed.
76. Herr Müller. - Radetzky's Chicanery towards Tessin. The Federal Council. Lohbauer
Berne, January 8. The Neapolitan Government, which is getting more and more worried about the non-arrival of Swiss recruits, has now sent one of its Swiss staff officers, Herr Tobias Müller, here to confer with the Federal Council about the change of the route of the recruits, as the stipulated port of embarcation, Genoa, is closed to them. This Herr Müller is eminently suitable for such a mission. Not only has he fought in Italy against freedom for many years; he had already in 1831 taken up arms in his home town (Freiburg) against the revolution. Radetzky, who knows his men, received him with distinction, embraced him in front of his General Staff, and praised him and the Swiss in Naples in general in glowing terms for their "loyalty to their King" (!) and their bravery in the service of their "King". However, Herr Müller will very likely come up against difficulties: even the liberalism which prevails in the Federal Council is no friend to the enlistment agreements,[229] any more than are the liberal governments of Berne and Lucerne.
While Radetzky fraternises with the Swiss in Naples, his chicaneries against Tessin are beginning all over again. He has informed the Government there that Mazzini is still hiding in the canton and has even revealed to it his hiding-place. He further complains that weapons are continuing to be smuggled into Lombardy. The Government has decided to investigate the first point and, if Mazzini is really again in the canton, to expel him; as to the second point, the Government let it lie on the table, since it was not its business to serve the Austrians as frontier guard. Radetzky has incidentally threatened to enforce the closing of the frontier again if smuggling of arms does not cease.
The Federal Council is busy with the draft laws to be put before the next Federal Assembly. Among these are the Customs Law, organisation of postal services, proposals for military organisation, and so on. It must be admitted that while the highly esteemed Frankfurt Assembly in its extravagant helplessness and helpless extravagance has not up to now produced anything but its own misère, the Swiss federal authorities are quietly carrying through one bourgeois centralisation step after another. A number of centralising laws will be put before the Councils in March, will be debated and adopted in May and June, and will come into force in June. For such small, detailed reforms the present ruling liberal generation of Swiss politicians (one cannot say statesmen) have an incontestable talent. In a few years the centralisation of Switzerland will be completed as far as the Constitution allows, and then the Constitution itself will become a fetter on the further development of the country, and the one and indivisible republic will become a necessity. All this on the — impossible — supposition that the European storm which is building up will leave Switzerland as neutral as did the year 1848.
But really, what kind of a nation is this, which in a time of revolution like the present is striving for no more than the abolition of cantonal customs, cantonal posts and other cantonal institutions which for many many years past have been heavily oppressive! Which in the midst of the birthpangs of a new historical epoch sees as its highest goal an improved edition of the historically outdated Federal Republic and the first beginnings, already necessitated by the Sonderbund war,[230] of bourgeois centralisation! What small beer in the ferment of the glorious European movement!
The Federal Council has moreover taken an extremely strange step. It has again appointed the well-known Herr Lohbauer of Berlin as Professor of Military Science. Herr Lohbauer, refugee of 1830, radical, later renegade, was, as is well known, summoned through the Eichhorn clique in the forties to Berlin, where he worked on the Staats-Zeitung* on the Janus and on other ultra-reactionary and pietist organs of the press. Herr Lohbauer is, if we are not much mistaken, the author of that lackey's kick in the shape of an article in the Staats-Zeitung with which Herwegh was thrown out of the royal states after his letter to His Majesty. Herr Lohbauer was never a soldier, and yet he is to lecture here on military science.[231] Only Herr Ochsenbein, who appointed him, can know the meaning of that.
In most of the cantons the Great Councils are now in agreement, and fighting against the pettiest local interests. The Zurich Great Council has elected our friend Dr. Alcibiades Escher as Burgomaster (id Schief of the Executive). The Berne Great Council will meet on the 15th.
Written by Engels on January 8, 1849
77. The Last Volunteer Insurgents
Berne, January 8. The second instance of the Court of Appeal here has sentenced Herr J. Ph. Becker and Herr H. Hattemer in Biel, the first to one year, the second to six months' exile from the canton, for founding the military association "Hilf Dir".[252] The other accused were acquitted. This brings to an end the famous story of the much-talked-of third volunteer insurgents' campaign, and the Central Authority can now once more devote its entire valuable time to the question of the German monarch and the German fleet. God bless their sour efforts for the well-being of the "whole fatherland".
Written by Engels on January 8, 1849
78. Budget
Berne, January 9. The Cantonal Budget has now been so far discussed in the Government Council that it can be presented to the Great Council which is to assemble shortly. It conforms with other European budgets in also having a deficit, of 43,000 francs out of a total of about 5 million francs. Of these 5 million, about 800,000 francs are covered by revenue from state property, 1,800,000 by indirect taxes, the rest by tolls. Thus the population pays per head almost exactly 4 Swiss francs (1 taler 18 sgr.) in direct taxes, and about 3V2 francs in indirect taxes. If all the reductions proposed by Finance Director Stämpfli (leader of the local radicals) had gone through, the result would have been a surplus of 80,000 francs instead of a deficit. But this did not suit the liberal majority of the Government Council, who calmly leave it to the aristocrats to make the eternal complaint of the "disastrous financial situation" in order to lay the blame for this on the radical Stämpfli. In reality, the canton's finances were brought into complete disorder and squan-dered by the notorious Neuhaus Government, and if order has been restored now, we have only Herr Stämpfli to thank for this.
Written by Engels on January 9, 1849
79. Priests’ Rebellion
Neuchâtel, January 9. We now have a priests' rebellion here. The vénérable compagnie des pasteurs,[3] who had led a splendid life among the pious regiment of God's grace — every pastor was the Eichhorn of his parish — have suffered a hard blow through the Republic. That is, the reverend gentlemen must be elected in future by the parishes themselves, and only for a limited period. Imagine the alarm! God's word no longer granted by one of God's ordained authorities, but hired out by the hour for ready cash just like a donkey or a day-labourer! The decision is taken, not by God-given will of the Royal Government, but by profane free competition, the pastor sinks to the position of an ordinary hired worker, the flock becomes a profane "employer" and can dismiss its worker if he does not carry out his task to its satisfaction. The indignation of the venerable company exceeds all bounds. They immediately issued a proclamation in which, in the most pitiful and lamentable way, they bleated against the desecration of the most holy. Naturally this only aroused universal derision. But in secret, these gentlemen, the old friends of the Jesuits and the Sonderbund, are intriguing against the Republic and conspiring to restore Frederick William, by the grace of God. The Government is magnanimous enough to allow these impotent machinations to go on for the time being. The patriotic associations will be adequate to counterbalance the ambitions of the priests. These patriotic associations are now forming everywhere. Starting from the mountains, from La Chaux-de-Fonds, Locle and the Traverstal, the home of our revolution,[233] they are spreading all over
The venerable company of pastors.—Ed.
the canton. Even the royalist village of Les Ponts has got its own association. This organisation of democracy through the people itself will be the best means of thwarting the plots of all the bédouins(1) and priests.
Written by Engels on January 9, 1849
80. The Swiss Press
Berne, January 11. Year by year the political press in Switzerland becomes increasingly active. Besides some twenty literary magazines, there are now 98 political newspapers in the 22 cantons. But one should not imagine that among them there are any large-size newspapers like the German or even the French. Except for a few newspapers in the Waadt canton, they are all only half a printed sheet and in quarto, and scarcely a dozen of them are published daily; a small number appear five times, most of them three times and some only once a week. With few exceptions they are all wretchedly managed and written. And, of course, on the restricted basis of cantonal conditions in this country, and in the extremely petty polemics which is the only possible kind here, how can any considerable journalistic talent develop and what really talented journalist would consent to be restricted to these meagre conditions and to the space of a quarto sheet that appears three times a week!
The best quality of the Swiss press is its brazenness. People say such things to one another publicly in the newspapers, make unblushingly such insolent personal attacks, that a Rhenish Public Prosecutor for whom Article 370(1) of the Code pénaf$4 is sacrosanct would not be able to stand it for three days in such a country.
But that is all. If one leaves out of account this recklessness which, incidentally, is quite without wit or humour, almost nothing is left but the most servile bowing and scraping to the repellent narrow-mindedness of a small nation, which in addition to its smallness is split and immeasurably puffed up — a nation of antediluvian Alpine herdsmen, hidebound peasants and disgusting philistines. That in large countries a newspaper takes the lead from its party and never undertakes anything against the interests of the party is quite understandable, and does little harm to freedom of discussion, because every trend, even the most progressive, has its press organs. But in the parochial conditions of Switzerland, the parties themselves are parochial, and the press is just as parochial as the parties. Hence the narrow-minded viewpoints from which everything is looked at; hence the absence of any press organs for trends which are indeed progressive, but which even in Germany have long been current. Hence the fear of even the most radical newspapers to diverge one iota from the narrow-minded programme of their party calculated only on the most immediate future, their fear to attack even the most extreme features of Swiss national narrow-mindedness. Anyone who violated sacred national feeling would immediately be punished by patriarchal lynch justice. What else does the honest Swiss need his fists for?
Such is the average level of the Swiss press. Above this level are the best newspapers of Romance Switzerland and Berne; below this level is the great mass of newspapers of East.Switzerland.
Let us begin with the press of the Swiss capital. In Berne a certain centralisation of the Swiss press is already taking place. The press of the canton is already concentrated there and is beginning to a certain extent to gain the influence befitting a capital city.
The chief organ of the reactionary, or as it is called here the aristocratic, party is the Schweizerischer Beobachter, which the Berner-Zeitung rightly calls the Moniteur of Swiss officers in the service of foreign states. This prim little newspaper (issued three times a week) praises the heroic deeds of the Swiss Croats in Italy, attacks the radicals with the dirtiest weapons, defends the enlistment agreements,[235] fulsomely praises the aristocrats, extols Radetzky and Windischgrätz, defends the murder of Robert Blum, slanders the revolution in all countries and denounces refugees to the Government. This noble sheet has really no editor; it is compiled from all kinds of dispatches and items from idle sons of patricians, and from place-seekers of the Municipal Council. A worthy companion to it is the Intelligenzblatt, an organ which has on the front page only announcements, while the back page is filled with articles praising the pietism and profit-making of the patrician landowners. Die Biene is intended to act as the Charivari of this party. But since nowadays the patrician gentlemen on the whole have more to weep over than to laugh at, the humour of this Biene is of a terribly dull and lame variety.
The moderate or liberal party, the party of Ochsenbein, has the Berner Verfassungs-Freund as its main organ. This newspaper, the editor of which is Dr., formerly Professor, Karl Herzog, is regarded as the semi-official organ of Ochsenbein. Edited by a fairly experienced hand, but without a trace of talent, the newspaper limits itself to defending the actions of the Government and Federal Council, insofar as these actions emanate from the Ochsenbein party. In regard to the eastern cantons, especially the l/r-cantons,[236]
it is of course fearfully liberal, and even in matters of foreign policy it sometimes issues a resounding trumpet-call in order, behind the warlike tone, to smuggle in the most non-committal neutrality. A more or less obscure newspaper, the Bundeszeitung, steers approximately the same course, as does also the French newspaper, La Suisse, edited in bad French by the Piedmontese Bassi. While not so directly linked with the Government as the Verfassungs-Freund, it is no less zealous in flattering the ruling liberal majority, and with great persistence but little success it attacks the revolutionary press of French Switzerland, in particular the Nouvelliste Vaudois. It behaves more decently in regard to the Italian question in which its editor takes a direct part.—These three newspapers appear daily.
The radical party has the largest number of newspapers. At their head is the Berner-Zeitung, of which the editor-in-chief is the barrister Niggeler, Vice-President of the Great Council and member of the Council of States. This newspaper is the organ of the markedly radical party of the German part of the canton, represented in the Government Council by Finance Director Stämpfli. Implementation of democracy in the legislation and administration of the canton, from which much ancient rubbish has still to be removed, the greatest possible centralisation throughout Switzerland, abandonment of the policy of neutrality at the first opportunity — these are the main principles in the editing of this newspaper.
The most eminent representatives of Berne radicalism participate in this work, and it is therefore not surprising that the Berner-Zeitung is the best edited newspaper not only in the canton, but in the whole of German Switzerland. If the editors and contributors could write quite freely the newspaper would be much better still, the one and indivisible Helvetian republic[237] would come into prominence, with a very red coloration at that; but that cannot be done just now; the party would not yet tolerate it. Appearing alongside the Berner-Zeitung from January 1, and also daily, is L'Helvétie fédérale, the successor of the newspaper Helvétie, formerly published in Pruntrut[3]
The French name is Porrentruy.— Ed.
in the Jura, organ of the Jura radicals and their leader, Colonel Stockmar, a member of the Government Council. The old Helvétie was definitely red; the new one is equally so, indeed in an even more marked degree.
The Schweizer Zeitung (previously Der Freie Schweizer) is likewise a representative of radicalism, but exclusively of the bourgeois variety, and therefore restricts itself wholly to demanding economic reforms which are advantageous to the ruling, propertied class. For the rest, however, this newspaper too goes beyond the usual Swiss cantonal narrow-mindedness (neutrality, sovereignty of the cantons etc.). Besides these three dailies, the Berne radicals have also a humorous newspaper, and in fact the only good one in Switzerland — the Gukkasten of Jenni. The Gukkasten (a weekly) restricts itself purely to Swiss and, particularly, Berne canton interests, but precisely for this reason it has succeeded in becoming a power in the land, so that it played an important part in the fall of the Neuhaus Government and is now trying to ensure that the Ochsenbein party does not remain at the helm too long. The merciless wit by which Jenni seeks to strip the halo of popularity from every one of the governing personalities, including Ochsenbein himself, has brought him innumerable court cases and vexations under the Neuhaus Government, and subsequently threatening letters and savage attacks. But all in vain, and the highly placed gentlemen of Berne still await the appearance of each fresh Saturday issue of the Gukkasten with considerable trepidation. When Blum was shot, the Gukkastens weekly cartoon depicted an executioner's block and axe, surrounded by a mass of broken crowns, with the caption: "The only remedy." When the sedate bourgeois of Berne waxed indignant over this, it was followed by a cartoon in the next issue showing a lamp-post with a crown dangling from it, and with the caption: "Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re(2)—in memory of Messenhauser!"
Until the New Year, the Seeländer Anzeiger, published by J. A. Weingart, a member of the National Council and the Great Council, was the sole representative of socialism. The Seeländer Anzeiger preaches a curious mixture of tearfully sentimental and philanthropic socialism with red revolution. It keeps the former for the Berne canton, but speaks of the latter as soon as it deals with foreign countries. As regards literary form, this weekly is one of the worst edited periodicals of the canton. For the rest, in spite of the Christian soft-hearted outpourings of his soul, Herr Weingart in politics supports the most outspoken radicalism. Since the New Year, the Seeländer Anzeiger has had a rival in the shape of another weekly, Der Unabhängige, which it is true has set itself a rather thankless task: in the conditions of the Berne canton and Switzerland in general to find starting points for propaganda of the fundamentals of socialism and to propose measures for getting rid of at least the most blatant evils. At any rate, this little newspaper is the only one in the whole of Switzerland which has adopted the right course to gain support for its ideas in this country, and if its chances of success are in proportion to the fury it has already aroused among the high and highest authorities, then its prospects are by no means bad.
Of the newspapers published outside the city, I shall mention only one: the Evolution, as Becker, the leader of the volunteer insurgents, has now renamed his Revolution.* This most outspoken of all the newspapers published in Switzerland alone calls for a new European revolution, for which it tries to win supporters among its entourage. By way of thanks, the peaceful burghers detest it, and it finds few readers, apart from the German refugees in Switzerland, Besançon and Alsace.
In a forthcoming article I shall examine in more detail the newspapers published outside Berne.[238]
Written by Engels on January 11, 1849
81. Protectionist Agitation. Recruiting into the Neapolitan Army
Berne, January 12. The protective tariff agitation in Switzerland is growing more and more lively, and so, in the same proportion, is the movement in the interest of preserving the free trade system which has existed up to now. The arguments of both sides are equally excellent and it is very hard to see how Switzerland will extricate itself from the dilemma. The protectionist party points to the yearly increasing pressure of foreign competition on home industry and the proportionately vanishing prospects for providing work for the growing unemployed population. As against this the free traders stress the price increases of industrial products, affecting the agricultural majority of the people, and the impossibility for a nation of two million people to protect a border as extended, and as suitable for smuggling, as the Swiss border, without ruinous expense. Both parties are perfectly right; without protective tariffs one branch of Swiss industry after another is ruined; with protective tariffs the federal finances are ruined. To unite both, the Berner Verfassungs-Freund proposes a juste-milieu tariff which would ruin both together. In March the Federal Councils will have to break their teeth on the impossible solution of this problem.
In Geneva for some time past, Neapolitan recruiting officers were seen going around trying to raise recruits for the service of His Bombarding Majesty.[2 9] Ferdinand must need the sturdy Swiss very badly if he even allows recruiting in cantons with which he has no enlistment agreement. But the Geneva Government soon put an end to these activities. It declared all engagements already entered into as null and void, forbade all recruiting, and threatened the recruiting officers with harsh punishment. The mercenaries of the Neapolitan hyena thereupon withdrew in all haste from the Geneva area.
82. Müller. - The Freiburg Government. - Ochsenbein
Berne, January 13. The great Herr Tobias Müller has at last arrived in the canton of Uri and is demanding from the Government that the depot of Neapolitan recruits, which was previously in Genoa, now be moved to Altorf, from whence he will send them by one route or another to Naples. It is not known whether the Government will agree to his demands; even if it does, it is still questionable whether the other governments bound by the enlistment agreement will be satisfied with the proposed move.—A troop of Lucerne recruits are, it is said, to be forwarded via Trieste to Naples, to the scandal of the whole civilised world.
The Freiburg Government, which in general is guilty of strangely arbitrary actions, has again, despite the new Federal Constitution, had a Schwyz canton citizen deported. Already earlier it had just as unceremoniously thrown out Herr Sieber of Zurich, editor of the Wächter of Murten, and present co-editor of the Berner-Zeitung. Both cases will come before the Federal Assembly, and it is hoped it will see that the Constitution is respected.
A wonder has come to pass: the press organ of the neutral Herr Ochsenbein, the Verfassungs-Freund, recognises repentantly that the Tessiners were not so much in the wrong in their quarrels with Radetzky and the East-Swiss troops.[3] He stammers his pater, peccavi(1)
and tries to cover the matter up with an Iliacos intra peccatur muros et
extra.(2) And yet the Tessin government councillors are the most confirmed anti-neutralists among the supporters of what Ochsenbein, in a malicious appeal to Swiss narrow-mindedness, calls "foreign policy". But the Tessiners have become very popular in Berne as a result of the reports of the Berne soldiers, and Herr Ochsenbein has got to remain popular in Berne; and finally, this is the bottom of the business, the Federal Council, without any cause, has just made the canton of Tessin again responsible for all further complications with Radetzky. But whenever Herr Ochsenbein
perpetrates in the Federal Council a practical dirty trick, the
Verfassungs-Freund must, in theory, clothe it in magnanimous and noble language. That's how they rule the stupid peasants in this country. Oh, democracy!
Written by Engels on January 13, 1849
83. Montesquieu LVI
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 20,1, January 21, 1849]
Cologne, January 20. The "honourable" Joseph Dumont allows an anonymous writer, who is not paid by him but pays him and who in the feature section seeks to influence the primary electors, to address the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in the following way[3]:
"The Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the Organ of Democracy, has been pleased to take notice of the articles published in this paper under the title 'To the Primary Electors', and to state that they were taken from the Neue Preussische Zeitung.
"In face of this lie, we simply declare that these articles are paid for as advertisements, and that, with the exception of the first one, taken from the Parlaments-Korrespondenz, they were written in Cologne and their author has up to nov/ not even seen, let alone read, the Neue Preussische Zeitung."
We understand how important it is for Montesquieu LVI to authenticate his property. We also understand how important for Herr Dumont is the statement that he is "paid" even for the leaflets and advertisements which he sets up, prints and distributes in the interest of his class, the bourgeoisie.
As for the anonymous writer, he is aware of the French saying: "Les beaux esprits se rencontrent."[15] It is not his fault that his own intellectual products and those of the Neue Preussische Zeitung and of the "Prussian associations"[242] are as alike as two peas.
We have never read his advertisements in the Kölnische Zeitung, but the leaflets produced by Dumont's printing-house and sent to us from various quarters, we deemed worthy of a casual glance. Now,
Here follows the statement by the Kölnische Zeitung editors published in their paper on January 20, 1849 (issue No. 17), following the address "To the Primary Electors".— Ed.
Great minds think alike.—Ed.
however, comparison has shown us that the same stuff plays the simultaneous role of advertisement and leaflet.
In order to atone for the injustice we have done to the anonymous Montesquieu LVI we have imposed upon ourselves the harsh penance of reading all his advertisements in the Kölnische Zeitung and making his intellectual private property available to the German public as common property .
Here is wisdom! Montesquieu LVI is chiefly concerned with the social question. He has found the "easiest and simplest way" to solve it, and he extols his Morison pill[244] with the most unctuous, naively shameless pathos of a quack.
"The easiest and simplest way, however, to achieve this" (that is the solution of the social question) "is to accept the Constitution imposed on December 5 last year, revise it, then make everyone swear allegiance to it, and thus to establish it. This is our only way to salvation. Consequently, any man who has a sympathetic heart for the misery of his poor brothers, who wants to feed the hungry and clothe the naked ... anyone, in short, who wants to solve the social question ... should not vote for anyone who is opposed to the Constitution" (Montesquieu LVI).
Vote for Brandenburg-Manteuffel-Ladenberg, and the social question-will be solved in the "simplest" and "easiest way"! Vote for Dumont, Camphausen, Wittgenstein or else for dii minorum gentium(1)
such as Compes and Mevissen — and the social question will be solved! The "social question" for a votel He who "wants to feed the hungry and clothe the naked" should vote for Hansemann and Stupp! One social question less for each vote! Acceptance of the imposed Constitution—voilà la solution du problème sociale
We do not for a moment doubt that neither Montesquieu LVI nor his patrons in the citizens' associations will wait for the imposed Constitution to be accepted, revised, sworn, and promulgated before "feeding the hungry and clothing the naked".[245] Measures have already been taken to this end.
During the last few weeks circulars have been distributed here in which capitalists inform craftsmen, shopkeepers etc. that, in view of the present state of affairs and the revival of credit, the rate of interest, for philanthropical reasons, has been raised from 4 to 5 per cent. First solution of the social question!
The Municipal Council here has in the same spirit drawn up a "Worker's Card" for the unfortunate people who must either starve or sell their hands to the city (cf. No. 187 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung[1]). It will be remembered that under this Charter imposed on the workers, the worker who has lost his job is bound by contract to place himself under police surveillance. Second solution of the social question!
Shortly after the March events, the Municipal Council established an eating-house in Cologne at cost prices, beautifully furnished, with fine rooms that could be heated etc. After the granting of the Constitution other premises were substituted for this, premises managed by the poor-law administration, where there is no heating, no crockery, where food may not be consumed on the spot and where a quart of indescribable gruel costs eight pfennigs. Third solution of the social question!
While they ruled Vienna the workers guarded the Bank, the houses and the wealth of the bourgeois who had fled. These same bourgeois, on their return, denounced these workers to Windischgrätz as "robbers" who ought to be hanged. The unemployed who applied to the Municipal Council were put into the army to fight Hungary. Fourth solution of the social question!
In Breslau the wretched people who were obliged to seek refuge in the poor-house were calmly exposed to cholera by the Municipal Council and the Government, which deprived them of the most essential physical necessaries of life, and took notice of the victims of their cruel charity only when they themselves were attacked by the disease. Fifth solution of the social question!
In the Berlin Association "with God for King and Fatherland",[246] a supporter of the imposed Constitution declared that it was distressing that in order to further one's interests and plans one still had to pay compliments to the "proletariat".
That is the solution of the "solution of the social question"!
"The Prussian spies are so dangerous because they are never paid but are always hoping to be paid," says our friend Heine. And the Prussian bourgeois are so dangerous because they never pay but always promise to pay.
During an election the English and French bourgeois spend quite a lot of money. Their corrupt practices are well known. The Prussian bourgeois "are the most shrewd"! They are much too virtuous and upright to dip into their pocket; they pay with the "solution of the social question". And that costs nothing. Montesquieu LVI, however, as Dumont officially assures us, pays at least for the advertisements in the Kölnische Zeitung and adds — gratis — the solution of the "social questions".
The practical part of our Montesquieu's petites œuvres thus boils down to the following: Vote for Brandenburg-Manteuffel-Ladenberg! Elect Camphausen-Hansemann! Send us to Berlin, just let our people establish themselves there. That is the solution of the social questionl
The immortal Hansemann has solved these questions. First, the establishment of law and order to revive credit. Then, the solution of the "social question" with powder and shot, as in 1844, when "my dear Silesian weavers ought to be helped"![247]
Vote therefore for the friends of the imposed Constitution! But Montesquieu LVI accepts the imposed Constitution only to be able afterwards to "revise" and "swear allegiance to it"!
My dear Montesquieu! Once you have accepted the Constitution you can revise it only on its own basis, that is insofar as it suits the King and the Second Chamber consisting of country squires, financial magnates, high-ranking officials and clerics. This only possible revision has been judiciously indicated already in the imposed Constitution itself. It consists in abandoning the constitutional system and restoring the former Christian-Germanic system of estates.
After the acceptance of the imposed Constitution this is the only possible and only permitted revision, which cannot have escaped the shrewd Montesquieu.
Thus the petites œuvres of Montesquieu LVI, in their practical part, amount to this: Vote for Hansemann-Camphausen! Vote for Dumont-Stupp! Vote for Brandenburg-Manteuffel! Accept the imposed Constitution! Elect delegates who accept the imposed Constitution — and all this under the pretext of solving "the social question".
What the hell does the pretext matter to us, when it is a question of the imposed Constitution.
But our Montesquieu of course prefaces his practical instructions for the solution of "the social question", the quintessence of his monumental work, with a theoretical part. Let us examine this theoretical part.
The profound thinker explains first what the "social questions" are.
"Hence man himself must procure everything to satisfy these needs. "This he does by labour. "Labour, therefore, is the first condition of our life; without labour we cannot live. "Among primitive peoples everybody built his own hut, made his own clothes from animal skins and gathered fruit for his meals. That was the primitive state.
"But if man needs nothing beyond shelter, clothes and food, if he satisfies merely his physical wants, then he remains at the same level as the animals, for animals can do this too.
"But man is a higher being than an animal, he needs more, he needs joy, he must raise himself to moral values. But he can do that only if he lives in society.
"But once men began to live in societies entirely new conditions arose. They soon perceived that work was much easier when each individual performed only one particular job. Thus, one made clothes, another built houses, a third provided food, and the first gave the second what he lacked. The various social estates of men thus developed automatically, one becoming a hunter, another a craftsman, and a third a cultivator. But men did not stop at this, for humanity must go forward. People began to invent. They invented spinning and weaving, they learned to forge iron and tan hides. The more inventions were made the more diverse did the crafts become, and the easier did farming become with the aid of the plough and spade which the handicrafts gave it. One thing helped another and everything was interconnected. Then intercourse started with neighbouring peoples; one people had what the other needed, and the latter possessed things the former lacked. These were exchanged. Thus trading arose, that is a new branch of human activity. Thus culture advanced step by step; from the first clumsy inventions through the centuries down to the inventions of our day.
"Thus, the sciences and the arts arose among men and life became ever richer and more varied. The physician treated the sick, the clergyman preached, the merchant traded, the farmer tilled the land, the gardener grew flowers, the mason built houses, for which the carpenter made the furniture, the miller ground flour from which the baker baked bread. Everything was interconnected, no one could live in isolation, nobody could satisfy all his needs himself.
"These are the social relations. "They have arisen quite naturally of their own accord. And if today you make a revolution which destroys the very foundations of these relations, and if tomorrow you start life anew, then relations exactly the same as the present ones will arise again. This has been so for thousands of years among all the nations on earth. And if anyone draws a distinction between the workers and the bourgeoisie this is a big lie. We all work, each in his own way, each according to his strength and abilities. The physician works when he visits the sick, the musician when he plays a dance tune, the merchant when he writes his letters. Everyone works, each at his job."
Here is wisdom! He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.(2)
What, then, in effect is the situation with the physiological question? Every corporeal being presupposes a certain weight, density etc. Every organic body consists of various component parts, each of which performs its own special function, and reciprocal interaction takes place between the organs. "These are physiological relations.^ Montesquieu LVI cannot be denied an original talent for simplifying science. He ought to be granted a patent (without government guarantee).
The products of labour cannot be produced without labour. One cannot reap without sowing, one cannot have yarn without weaving etc.
Europe will bend in admiration before the great genius who here, in Cologne, without any aid from the Neue Preussische Zeitung has himself brought these truths to light.
In their work men enter into certain relations with one another. There takes place a division of labour which may be more or less diversified. One person bakes, another forges iron, one person agitates [wühlt], another wails [heult],[248] Montesquieu LVI writes and Dumont prints. Adam Smith, acknowledge thy master!
These discoveries, that labour and the division of labour are essential conditions of life of every human society, enable Montesquieu LVI to draw the conclusion that the existence of the "various social estates" is quite natural, that the distinction between "bourgeoisie and proletariat" is a "big lie", that even if a "revolution" were completely to destroy the existing "social relations" today, "relations exactly the same as the present ones will arise again", and finally that for anyone who has "a sympathetic heart for the misery of his poor brothers" and who wishes to gain the respect of Montesquieu LVI, it is absolutely necessary to elect delegates in keeping with the ideas of Manteuffel and the imposed Constitution.
" This has been so for thousands of years among all the nations on earth"!!! In Egypt there was labour and division of labour — and castes; in Greece and Rome labour and division of labour — and free men and slaves; in the . Middle Ages labour and division of labour — and feudal lords and serfs, guilds, social estates etc. In our day there is labour and division of labour — and classes, one of which owns all means of production and all means of subsistence, while the other lives only so long as it sells its labour,[249] and it sells its labour only so long as the employing class enriches itself by purchasing this labour.
Is it not obvious, therefore, that "for thousands of years it has been the same among all the nations on earth" as it is in Prussia today, since labour and division of labour have always existed in one form or another? Or is it, on the contrary, evident that the social relations, the property relations, were always overthrown by the constantly changing method of labour and division of labour?
In 1789 the bourgeois did not tell feudal society that an aristocrat should remain an aristocrat, a serf a serf and a guildsman a guildsman — because there is no society without labour and division of labour. There is no life without breathing of air. Hence, argues Montesquieu LVI, breathe the stuffy air and do not open any window.
One must possess the naively clumsy insolence of a German imperial philistine grown grey in crass ignorance to contribute oracular pronouncements upon problems on which our century is breaking its teeth, after having rammed the first elements of political economy — labour and division of labour — in a superficial and distorted manner into his inert head.
"There is no society without labour and division of labour.
Therefore
"Elect friends of the imposed Prussian Constitution, and only friends of the imposed Constitution, as delegates."
This epitaph some day will be inscribed in large letters on the walls of the magnificent marble mausoleum which a grateful posterity will feel obliged to erect for Montesquieu LVI (not to be confused with Henry CCLXXXIV of Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz-Lobenstein-Eberswaldea) who solved the social question.
Montesquieu LVI does not conceal from us "where the difficulty lies" and what he intends to do as soon as he is proclaimed a lawgiver.
"The state," he teaches us, "must see to it that everybody receives sufficient education to be able to learn something useful in this world."
Montesquieu LVI has never heard that under existing conditions the division of labour replaces complex labour by simple labour, the labour of adults by that of children, the labour of men by that of women, the labour of the independent workers by automatons; that, in proportion as modern industry develops, the education of workers becomes unnecessary and impossible. We refer the Montesquieu of Cologne neither to Saint-Simon nor to Fourier but to Malthus and Ricardo. This worthy should first acquaint himself with the rudiments of present-day conditions before trying to improve them and making oracular utterances.
"The community must take care of people who have been reduced to poverty as a result of illness or old age."
And if the community itself is reduced to poverty which will be the inevitable result of the 100-million tax imposed simultaneously with the new Constitution and the epidemically recurring states of siege — what then, Montesquieu?
" When new inventions or commercial crises destroy entire industries the state must come to their assistance and find remedies."
Little versed as he may be in the things of this world, it can hardly have escaped the Montesquieu of Cologne that "new inventions" and commercial crises are features just as permanent as the Prussian ministerial decrees and legal basis. New inventions, especially in Germany, are only introduced when competition with other nations makes it vital to introduce them; and should the newly arising branches of industry be expected to ruin themselves in order to render assistance to the declining ones? The new industries that come into being as a result of inventions come into being precisely because they can produce more cheaply than the declining industries. What the deuce would be the advantage if they had to feed the declining industries? But it is well known that the state, the Government, only seems to give. It has to be given something first in order to give. But who should give to it, Montesquieu LVI? The declining industry, so that it declines even faster? Or the rising industry, so that it withers even as it rises? Or those industries that have not been affected by the new inventions, so that they go bankrupt because of the invention of a new tax? Think it over carefully, Montesquieu LVI!
And what about the commercial crises, my dear man? When a European commercial crisis occurs the Prussian state is above all anxious to extract the last drops, by means of distraint etc., from the usual sources of revenue. Poor Prussian state! In order to neutralise the effect of commercial crises, the Prussian state would have to possess, in addition to national labour, a third source of income in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. If royal New-Year greetings,(3) Wrangel's army orders or Manteuffel's ministerial decrees could indeed conjure up money, then the "refusal to pay taxes" would not have caused such panic among the Prussian "well-beloved loyal subjects", and the social question, too, would have been solved without an imposed Constitution.
It will be remembered that the Neue Preussische Zeitung called our Hansemann a communist because he intended to do away with exemption from taxation. In Cologne our Montesquieu, who has never read the Neue Preussische Zeitung, has all by himself conceived the idea of calling everyone a "communist" and "red republican" who endangers the imposed Constitution. Therefore, vote for Manteuffel, or you are not only personal enemies of labour and the division of labour, but also communists and red republicans.
Acknowledge Brüggemann's latest "legal basis" or renounce the Code civil.(4)'
Figaro, tu n'aurais pas trouvé çal*
More about Montesquieu LVI tomorrow.
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 202, January 22, 1849]
Cologne, January 21. With the sly petty cunning of an experienced horse-dealer, Montesquieu LVI seeks to sell the "gift horse", the imposed Constitution, to the primary electors. He is the Montesquieu of the horse-fair.
Anyone not wanting the imposed Constitution wants a republic, and not just a republic, but a red republic! Unfortunately, the issue in our elections is least of all a republic, or a red republic; it is simply this:
Do you want the old absolutism together with a refurbished system of social estates, or do you want a bourgeois system of representation? Do you want a political constitution in keeping with the "existing social relations" of past centuries, or do you want a political constitution in keeping with the "existing social relations" of your century?
In this case, therefore, it is least of all a question of fighting against bourgeois property relations similar to the struggle that is taking place in France and is being prepared in England; rather it is a question of a struggle against a political constitution which endangers "bourgeois property relations" by surrendering the helm of state to the representatives of "feudal property relations", to the King by the grace of God, the army, the bureaucracy, the country squires, and a few financial magnates and philistines who are allied with them.
Beyond a doubt, the imposed Constitution has solved the social question in keeping with the views of these gentlemen.
What is the "social question" as understood by the government official? It is the maintenance of his salary and his present position, which is superior to the people.
What is the "social question" as understood by the nobility and its big landowners? It is the maintenance of the hitherto existing feudal rights of the landowners, seizure of the most lucrative posts in the army and civil service by the families of the landed nobility, and finally direct alms from the public purse. Apart from these palpable material and therefore "most sacred" interests of the gentlemen "with God for King and Fatherland"[3] it is for them, of course, also a question of preserving those social privileges which distinguish their race from the inferior race of the bourgeois, peasants and plebeians. The old National Assembly was dispersed precisely because it dared to lay hands on these "most sacred interests". As we have already indicated, these gentlemen, by "revision" of the imposed Constitution, understand simply the introduction of a system of social estates, that is to say, a form of political constitution representing the "social" interests of the feudal aristocracy, the bureaucracy and the monarchy by the grace of God.
We repeat, there is not the slightest doubt that the imposed Constitution solves the "social question" in keeping with the views of the aristocracy and the bureaucracy, in other words, it presents these gentlemen with a form of government which ensures the exploitation of the people by these demigods.
But has the imposed Constitution solved the "social question" from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie? In other words, does the bourgeoisie receive a political system enabling if freely to administer the affairs of its class as a whole, i.e. the interests of commerce, industry and agriculture, to make the most productive use of public funds, to manage the state budget as cheaply as possible, to protect national labour effectively from without, and within the country to open up all sources of national wealth silted by feudal mud?
Does history provide a single example showing that under a king imposed by the grace of God, the bourgeoisie ever succeeded in achieving a political system in keeping with its material interests?
In order to establish a constitutional monarchy it was twice compelled to get rid of the Stuarts in Britain, and the hereditary Bourbons in France, and to expel William of Orange from Belgium.[251]
What is the reason for this? A hereditary king by the grace of God is not a particular individual but the physical representative of the old society within the new society. State power in the hands of a king by the grace of God is state power in the hands of the old society existing now merely as a ruin; it is state power in the hands of the feudal social estates, whose interests are profoundly antagonistic to those of the bourgeoisie.
But it is precisely the "King by the grace of God" who forms the basis of the imposed Constitution.
Just as the feudal strata of society regard the monarchy by the grace of God as their political apex, so does the monarchy by the grace of God regard the feudal estates as its social foundation, the well-known "monarchical wall".[252]
Therefore, whenever the interests of the feudal lords and of the army and bureaucracy controlled by them clash with the interests of the bourgeoisie, the monarchy by the grace of God will invariably be impelled to a coup d'état and a revolutionary or counter-revolutionary crisis will arise.
Why was the National Assembly dispersed? Only because it upheld the interests of the bourgeoisie against the interests of feudalism; because it wanted to abolish the feudal relations hampering agriculture, to subordinate the army and bureaucracy to trade and industry, to stop the squandering of public funds and abolish aristocratic and bureaucratic titles.
All these were questions chiefly and directly affecting the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Thus, coups d'état and counter-revolutionary crises are vital conditions for the monarchy by the grace of God, which the March and similar events compelled to humiliate itself and reluctantly to accept the semblance of a bourgeois monarchy.
Can credit ever revive again under a political system which inevitably culminates in coups d'état, counter-revolutionary crises and states of siege?
What a delusion!
Bourgeois industry must burst the fetters of absolutism and feudalism. A revolution against both only demonstrates that bourgeois industry has reached a level when it must either win an appropriate political system or perish.
The system of bureaucratic tutelage guaranteed by the imposed Constitution spells death for industry. It is sufficient to look at the Prussian administration of mines, the factory regulations etc. When an English manufacturer compares his costs of production with those of a Prussian manufacturer, he will always first of all note the time losses which the Prussian manufacturer incurs because he has to observe bureaucratic rules.
What sugar-refiner does not remember the Prussian trade agreement with the Netherlands in 1839?[253] What Prussian factory owner does not blush at the memory of 1846, when the Prussian Government in deference to the Austrian Government banned exports to Galicia for a whole province, and when one bankruptcy after another occurred in Breslau the Prussian Government declared with astonishment that it had had no idea that there were such important exports to Galicia etc.!
Men of the same race are placed at the helm of state by the imposed Constitution, and this "gift" itself comes from the same men. Consequently, examine it twice.
The Galicia adventure draws our attention to another point. At that time the counter-revolutionary Prussian Government in league with Austria and Russia sacrificed Silesian industry and Silesian trade.[254] This manoeuvre will be constantly repeated. The banker of the Prussian-Austrian-Russian counter-revolution, from which the monarchy by the grace of God with its monarchical walls will always have to seek outside support, is England. The same England is German industry's most dangerous opponent. These two facts, we believe, speak for themselves.
At home, an industry fettered by bureaucracy and an agriculture fettered by feudal privileges; abroad, a trade sold by the counter-revolution to England — such is the fate of Prussia's national wealth under the aegis of the imposed Constitution.
The report of the "Financial Commission" of the dispersed National Assembly has thrown sufficient light on the management of national wealth by the grace of God.
The report however mentions only by way of example the sums taken from the treasury to support the tottering monarchical walls and gild foreign pretenders to the absolute monarchy (Don Carlos). But these monies, purloined from the pockets of the rest of the citizens to enable the aristocracy to live in appropriate style and to keep the "buttresses" of the feudal monarchy in good condition, are only of secondary importance compared with the state budget imposed simultaneously with Manteuffel's Constitution. The main features of the imposed state budget are, first of all, a strong army to enable the minority to rule the majority; as large an army as possible of officials so that as many of them as possible, by virtue of their private interests, are alienated from the common interest; unproductive employment of public monies in order that wealth, as the Neue Preussische Zeitung says, should not make the subjects overbold; immobilisation wherever possible of public monies instead of employing them in industry in order that at easily predictable moments of crisis the Government by the grace of God should independently confront the people. The basic principle of the imposed Prussian Constitution is to use the taxes for maintaining the state power as an oppressive, independent and sacred force contraposed to industry, commerce and agriculture, instead of degrading it into a profane tool of bourgeois society.
The gift is worthy of the donor. The Constitution is of a piece with the present Prussian Government that presented it. To characterise this Government's hostility towards the bourgeoisie it is sufficient to point to its proposed trade regulations. On the pretext of advancing towards association the Government attempts to return to the guild system. Competition compels the manufacturer to produce more and more cheaply and therefore on a constantly increasing scale, i.e. with more capital, with a continuously expanding division of labour and constantly increasing use of machinery. Every new division of labour depreciates the traditional skill of the craftsmen, every new machine ousts hundreds of workers, production on a larger scale, that is with more capital, ruins small trade and petty-bourgeois enterprise. The Government promises to protect the handicrafts against the factories, acquired skills against division of labour, and small capital against big capital, by means of feudal guild institutions. Thus, the German nation, particularly the Prussian, which only with the utmost difficulty and effort resists complete defeat by English competition, is to become its defenceless prey, forced to accept a form of trade organisation that is incompatible with modern means of production and is already burst wide open by modern industry.
We are certainly the last people to desire the rule of the bourgeoisie. We were the first in Germany to raise our voice against the bourgeoisie when today's "men of action" were spending their time complacently in petty squabbles.
But we say to the workers and the petty bourgeois: it is better to suffer in modern bourgeois society, which by its industry creates the material means for the foundation of a new society that will liberate you all, than to revert to a bygone form of society, which, on the pretext of saving your classes, thrusts the entire nation back into medieval barbarism.
But medieval social estates and conditions are, as we have seen, the social foundation of the Government by the grace of God. This Government is unsuitable for modern bourgeois society. It necessarily tries to create a society in its own image. It is entirely consistent when it attempts to replace free competition by the guild system, mechanical spinning by the spinning-wheel and the steam plough by the hoe.
Why is it then that, under these circumstances, the Prussian bourgeoisie, in complete contrast to its French, English and Belgian predecessors, proclaims as its shibboleth the imposed Constitution (and with it the monarchy by the grace of God, the bureaucracy and the junkers)?
The commercial and industrial sections of the bourgeoisie throw themselves into the arms of the counter-revolution for fear of the revolution. As though counter-revolution were not the overture to revolution.
There is moreover a section of the bourgeoisie that, quite indifferent to the interests of its class as a whole, pursues its own particular interests, which may even be inimical to those of its class.
These are financial magnates, big creditors of the state, bankers, and rentiers, whose wealth increases proportionately to the poverty of the people, and finally men whose business depends on the old political structure, e.g. Dumont and his literary lumpenproletariat. These are ambitious professors, lawyers and similar persons, who can only hope to obtain respectable posts in a state where betrayal of the people's interests to the Government is a lucrative business.
These are individual manufacturers who do well out of their transactions with the Government; contractors whose considerable profits depend on the general exploitation of the people; philistines who lose their importance in political life on a large scale; local councillors who under cover of the old institutions arrange their private shady affairs at the expense of the public; oil merchants who by betrayal of the revolution have become Excellencies and Knights of the Eagle[3]; bankrupt cloth merchants and speculators in railway shares who have become royal bank directors[15] etc., etc.
"It is they who are the friends of the imposed Constitution." If the bourgeoisie has a sympathetic heart for these poor brothers and if it wants to be worthy of the respect of Montesquieu LVI, then it should elect
delegates in keeping with the imposed Constitution.
Written by Marx on January 20-21, 1849
Probably an allusion to the supporters of the Prussian royal house, whose coat of arms featured an eagle.—Ed.
An allusion to Camphausen and Hansemann.—Ed.
84. Answer from Colonel Engels
Cologne. We have received from Colonel Engels the following answer to our question of two days ago.
"To the insertion in No. 203 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung the answer is No. "Only private persons have permitted themselves to express the opinion, unlawful in my view, that not enough by a long chalk has been done to these houses by the soldiers.
"Cologne, January 24, 1849
Engels, Colonel, 2nd Commandant "To the esteemed editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung."
We will very likely have new questions to put to Herr Engels in the next few days, and particularly about the elections.
Written by Engels on January 25, 1849
85. The Prussian Warrant for the Arrest of Kossuth
Cologne, January 21. We have just received the following edifying document published in the Oppelner Kreisblatt:
"Warrant of Arrest. According to a statement of the royal imperial Austrian governmental commission in Cracow, measures have been taken in Hungary to enable Kossuth under a false name to reach Hamburg via Breslau. It is supposed that he will take the route through Myslowitz, Gleiwitz and Kosel.
"On the basis of instructions from the Herr Oberpräsident of the province of Silesia, I order all police authorities, local courts and gendarmerie to keep a sharp look-out for Kossuth, whose description is given below, and in the event of his appearance on their territory to arrest him and to deliver him to me safely for further steps."
(Here follows, as already stated, Kossuth's description.) This edifying document is signed: "Oppeln, January 17, 1849
Royal Landrat Hoffmann"
What have our readers to say to that? The Manteuffels of Upper Silesia by the grace of God would be quite pleased to arrest the great agitator Kossuth if he were defeated and succeeded in crossing the frontier, and to deliver him to his executioners for the speediest pardon with gunpowder and shot. If Kossuth is in actual fact handed over, this will be the most foul betrayal, the most infamous violation of international law that history has ever known.
Under the old legislation of the German Confederation,[256] of course, Prussia was obliged to hand over to German Austria, on the demand of the latter, political refugees charged with actions carried out on the territory of the German Confederation. The revolution overthrew the old legislation of the German Confederation, and even under the Pfuel Government refugees from Vienna were safe in Berlin.
But Prussia has no such obligations in relation to Hungary. Hungary is an independent state and if Prussia hands over Hungarian refugees who can be charged only with actions carried out on Hungarian territory, it commits the same disgraceful and infamous deed as if it handed over Russian or Polish refugees to Russia.
Even under the Bodelschwingh regime the authorities did not dare to hand over to Austria the refugees from Galicia and Cracow who had crossed the border into Prussia.[257] But, on the other hand, of course, at that time we were under an absolute monarchy, and today we are a constitutional state!
Moreover, if Kossuth crosses into Prussian territory he will not be a political refugee but a belligerent party that has crossed into neutral territory.
German Austria, an independent union of states, is waging war against Hungary, an independent state; the reason for it is no concern of Prussia's. Even in 1831 the authorities did not dare to hand over to Russia the Poles who had crossed the border into Prussia[258]; but at that time, too, we were under an absolute monarchy, and today we are a constitutional state!
We draw the attention of public opinion to the benevolent intentions of the Prussian Government in regard to Kossuth. We are convinced that this will suffice to arouse such a storm of sympathy for the greatest man of the year 1848, and such a storm of indignation against the Government, that even a Manteuffel will not dare to oppose it.
But, of course, for the time being Kossuth still rules in Debreczin, with the enthusiastic support of the entire Magyar people; his valiant hussars still gallop over the Hungarian plains, [59] Windischgrätz still stands in perplexity facing the swamps of the Theiss, and your warrants of arrest are ridiculous rather than frightening!
Written by Engels on January 21, 1849
86. The Berlin National-Zeitung to the Primary Electors
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 205, January 26, 1849]
Cologne, January 25. Although rarely, it does happen from time to time that one has the pleasure of seeing a signpost of the good old pre-March times rising out of the alluvial deposit which the double deluge of revolution and counter-revolution has left behind. Mountains have been shifted, valleys have been filled up, and forests levelled to the ground, but the signpost still stands in its old place, painted in the old colours, and still bearing the old inscription: "To Schilda!"[260]
Just such a signpost stretches its wooden arm towards us from No. 21 of the Berlin National-Zeitung with the inscription: "To the primary electors. To Schilda!"
The well-meant advice of the National-Zeitung to the primary electors states first of all:
"The hour has come when the Prussian people is about to exercise for the second time its hard-won universal suffrage" (as if the so-called universal suffrage, granted from above, with its different interpretation in each village, were the same suffrage as that of April 8! ), "from which are to come the men who for the second time have to declare what is the spirit (!), the opinion (!!) and the will (!!!) not of separate social estates and classes, but of the whole people."
We shall not speak of the turgidly clumsy style of this sentence which advances slowly and long-windedly from one word to the next. Universal suffrage, it says, should reveal to us the will not of separate social estates and classes, but of the whole people.
Fine! But what does "the whole people" consist of? Of "separate social estates and classes". And what does "the will of the whole people" consist of? Of the separate contradictory "wills" of the "separate social estates and classes", hence precisely of the will which the National-
Zeitung describes as the direct opposite of the "will of the whole people".
What a great logician the National-Zeitung is!
For the National-Zeitung, however, there exists a single will of the whole people, which is not the sum of contradictory wills, but a united, definite will. How can that be?
It is — the will of the majority. And what is the will of the majority?
It is the will which derives from the interests, the situation in life, and the living conditions of the majority.
Consequently, in order to have one and the same will, the members of the majority must have the same interests, the same situation in life, and the same living conditions, or for the time being they must be linked with one another by their interests, their situation in life, and their living conditions.
In plain language: the will of the people, the will of the majority, is the will not of separate social estates and classes, but of a single class and of those other classes and sections of classes which are subordinated to this one ruling class socially, i.e. industrially and commercially.
"But what are we to say to that?" That the will of the whole people is the will of a ruling class?
Of course, and it is precisely universal suffrage that acts as the compass needle which, even if only after various fluctuations, nevertheless finally points to this class which is called upon to rule.
And this good National-Zeitung still continues, as in 1847, to chatter about an imaginary "will of the whole people"!
Let us proceed. After this elevating exordium the National-Zeitung astounds us with the following significant remark:
"In January 1849 the state of affairs is different from the May days of 1848 so rich in hope and elation" (why not also in piety?).
All was then adorned with blossom, And the sun's rays shone with laughter, And the birds sang so full of hope, And the people hoped and thought— They were deep in thought.[3]
"At that time there seemed to be complete unanimity that the great reforms, which should have been undertaken in Prussia already long ago if on the foundations laid in 1807-14 there had been further construction in the spirit of that time and in accord with the higher level of culture and understanding since achieved, would now have to be carried out completely and without delay."
Heinrich Heine, Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen, Caput VIII.—Ed.
"At that time there seemed to be complete unanimity"! Grand, delightful naivety of the National-Zeitungl At that time, when the Guards, gnashing their teeth in fury, were retreating from Berlin, when the Prince of Prussia had to flee in haste from Berlin in a postilion's jacket, when the upper ranks of the nobility and bourgeoisie had to suppress their anger at the ignominy which the King was made to suffer in the palace-yard when the people forced him to remove his hat before the dead bodies of those killed during the March days—"at that time there seemed to be complete unanimity"!
Heaven knows, it is already overdoing it to have imagined anything of the sort. But now, after one has had to admit to having been cheated, to proclaim one's cheated gullibility from the house-tops — truly, c'est par trop bonhommel*
And on what did there "seem to be complete unanimity"? On "that the great reforms, which should have been undertaken ... if ... there had been further construction ... would now have to be carried out".
On that there was — no, there seemed to be — complete unanimity. The great March achievement, expressed in worthy language! And what "reforms" were these? Development of the "foundations laid in 1807-14 in the spirit of that time and in accord with the higher level of culture and understanding since achieved".
That is to say in the spirit of 1807-14, and at the same time in quite a different spirit.
The "spirit of that time" consisted quite simply in the extremely material pressure of the French of that time on the Prussian junker monarchy of that time, as well as in the likewise unfavourable financial deficit of the Prussian kingdom at that time. In order to make the bourgeois and the peasant capable of paying taxes, in order to introduce at least in appearance among the royal Prussian subjects some of the reforms which the French had lavished on the conquered parts of Germany — in short, in order in some degree to patch up the decayed monarchy of the Hohenzollerns that was splitting at every seam, for the sake of that a few niggardly so-called urban by-laws, redemption orders, army institutions etc. were introduced. The only distinction of these reforms was that they were a whole century behind the French revolution of 1789, and indeed even behind the English revolution of 1640. And that is supposed to be the foundations for Prussia that has been revolutionised?
That is too simple-minded!—Ed.
But old-Prussian conceit always sees Prussia in the centre of world history, whereas in reality world history has always dragged the "state of reason"[3] after it, through the mire. This old-Prussian conceit has, of course, to ignore the fact that as long as Prussia was not kicked by the French, it calmly remained on the undeveloped foundations of 1807-14 and never stirred at all. It has to ignore the fact that these foundations were long ago forgotten when the glorious bureaucratic-junker royal Prussian monarchy in February last year received a new and so powerful push from the French that it most gloriously toppled over from its "foundations of 1807-14". It has to ignore the fact that for the royal Prussian monarchy it was in no way a question of these foundations, but merely one of warding off the further consequences of the push received from France. But Prussian conceit ignores all that, and when it suddenly receives the push, it cries out, like a child crying for its nurse, for the decayed foundations of 1807-14.
As if the Prussia of 1848, as regards territory, industry, trade, means of communication, culture and class relations, were not a totally different country from the Prussia of the "foundations of 1807-14"!
As if since that time two quite new classes — the industrial proletariat and the class of free peasants — had not intervened in its history; as if the Prussian bourgeoisie of 1848 were not quite different from the timid, docile and grateful petty bourgeoisie of the time of the "foundations"!
But all that is of no avail. A loyal Prussian must not know anything but his "foundations of 1807-14". Those are the foundations on which further construction will take place — and that is the end of the matter.
The beginning of one of the most colossal historical revolutions is shrunken into nothing more than the ending of one of the pettiest pseudo-reform swindles — that is how revolution is understood in old Prussia!
And in this self-complacent narrow-minded fantasy from the country's history "there seemed to be complete unanimity"—of course, only in Berlin, thank God!
Let us proceed.
"Those social estates and classes which had to renounce privileges and special rights ... which were destined in the future to stand only on an equal footing with all
Marx uses ironically the expression Staat der Intelligenz by which Hegel designates the Prussian state (see G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie. Vorrede, gesprochen zu Heidelberg den 29-sten Oktober 1816 (Note).—Ed.
their fellow citizens ... seemed prepared for that renunciation — inspired by the conviction that the old state of things had become untenable, that it was in their own well-understood interest...."
Look at this meek and mild, sincerely humble bourgeois — how once again he conjures away the revolution! The nobility, the priests, the bureaucrats, the officers, "seemed prepared" to renounce their privileges, not because the armed people forced them to do so, not because in the first moments of terror at the European revolution, the demoralisation and disorganisation irresistibly spreading in their own ranks made them incapable of resistance — no! The peaceful, benevolent "agreements" (to use Herr Camphausen's language) of February 24 and March 18,a which were advantageous to both sides, "inspired" them with the "conviction" that this "was in their own well-understood interest"!
That the March revolution, and above all February 24, was in the well-understood interest of the Herren cabbage-junkers, members of church councils, Regierungsräte, and Guards lieutenants — that is indeed a truly monumental idea!
But, unfortunately!
"Today it is no longer like that. The beneficiaries and adherents of the old state of affairs, far from themselves helping, as is their duty (!), to see that the old rubbish is cleared away and the new house built, want only to prop up the old ruins beneath which the ground shook so dangerously and to embellish them with some forms in appearance appropriate to the new period."
"Today it is no longer like that"—as it appeared to be in May, i.e. it is no longer what it was not in May, or it is precisely the same as it was in May.
That is the sort of language in which the Berlin National-Zeitung is written and, what is more, its writers are proud of it.
In a word: May 1848 and January 1849 differ from one another only in appearance. Previously the counter-revolutionaries seemed to understand their duty — today they actually and openly do not, and the peaceful bourgeois moans about it. After all, it is the duty of the counter-revolutionaries to renounce their interests for the sake of their own well-understood interest! It is their duty themselves to cut their vital arteries — yet, they do not do so — thus moans the exponent of well-understood interest!
And why do your enemies not do now what, as you say, is nevertheless their duty?
On February 24, 1848, Louis Philippe was overthrown in France; March 18, 1848 — the beginning of the revolution in Prussia.—Ed.
Because in the spring you yourselves did not do your "duty", because at that time, when you were strong, you behaved like cowards and quaked before the revolution that was to make you great and powerful; because you yourselves let the old rubbish remain and complacently admired yourselves in the mirror wearing the aureole of a half success! And now, when the counter-revolution has become strong overnight and sets its foot on your neck, when under your feet the ground shakes dangerously — now you demand that the counter-revolution should become your servant, should clear away the rubbish that you were too weak and cowardly to clear away, that it, grown mighty, should sacrifice itself for you who are weak?
What childish fools you are! But wait a little and the people will rise up and with a single mighty push will throw you to the ground together with the counter-revolution against which you are now so impotently yapping!
[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 207, January 28, 1849, second edition]
Cologne, January 27. In our first article we did not take into account one circumstance which could, at any rate apparently, serve to excuse the National-Zeitung; the National-Zeitung is not free in what it writes — it is under martial law. And under martial law it has, of course, to sing:
Bid me not speak, bid me be silent, To keep my secret is for me a duty;
I would for you my inmost soul lay bare, 'Tis only fate that will not let me do so!!!a
Even under martial law, however, newspapers are not published in order to say the opposite of what they think; moreover, martial law has nothing to do with the first half, which we considered previously, of the article in question.
Martial law is not to blame for the inflated, nebulous style of the National-Zeitung.
Martial law is not to blame for the fact that after March the National-Zeitung created for itself all sorts of naive illusions.
Martial law does not at all compel the National-Zeitung to make the 1848 revolution the train-bearer of the reforms of 1807-14.
Goethe, "Mignon". From the novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, Book V, Chapter 16.—Ed.
In short, martial law in no way compels the National-Zeitung to entertain such absurd notions about the course of development of the revolution and counter-revolution in 1848 as we proved it to hold two days ago. Martial law affects not the past but the present.
Therefore, in our criticism of the first half of the article in question, we did not take martial law into account, and precisely for this reason we shall take it into account today.
After ending its historical introduction, the National-Zeitung addresses the primary electors in the following way:
"It is a matter of safeguarding the progress initiated, of consolidating the achievements."
What "progress"? What "achievements"? The "progress" expressed in the fact that "today it is no longer like that", as it "appeared" to be in May? The "achievement" that "the beneficiaries of the old state of affairs are far from themselves helping, as is their duty, to see that the old rubbish is cleared away"? Or the granted "achievements" which "prop up the old ruins and embellish them with some forms in appearance appropriate to the new period"?
Martial law, gentlemen of the National-Zeitung, is no excuse for absence of thought and confusion.
The "progress" which just now has been most successfully "initiated" is regression to the old system, and we are daily advancing farther along this path of progress.
The sole "achievement" left to us — and it is not a specifically Prussian, not a "March" achievement, but the result of the 1848 European revolution — is the most general, most determined, most blood-thirsty and most violent counter-revolution, which is itself only a phase of the European revolution, and hence only the generator of a new, universal and victorious revolutionary counterblow.
But perhaps the National-Zeitung knows that just as well as we do, and only dare not say it because of martial law? Listen to this:
"We do not want a continuance of the revolution; we are enemies of all anarchy, all acts of violence and arbitrariness; we want law, tranquillity and order."
Martial law, gentlemen, compels you at most to be silent, never to speak. Therefore we put on record the sentence just quoted: if it is you who are speaking through its words, so much the better; if it is martial law that is speaking, there is no need for you to make yourselves its organ. Either you are revolutionary, or you are not. If you are not, then we are opponents from the outset; if you are, you should have been silent.
But you speak with such conviction, you have such an honest past, that we can safely assume that martial law has absolutely nothing to do with this asseveration.
"We do not want a continuance of the revolution." That means: we want the continuance of the counter-revolution. For it is a historical fact that either one does not put an end to violent counter-revolution at all, or one does so only through revolution.
"We do not want a continuance of the revolution", that means: we recognise that the revolution is ended, that it has reached its goal. And the goal which the revolution had reached on January 21, 1849, when the above-mentioned article was written, this goal was precisely — counter-revolution.
"We are enemies of all anarchy, all acts of violence and arbitrariness."
That means enemies also of the "anarchy" which occurs after every revolution until the new conditions have been consolidated, enemies of the "acts of violence" of February 24 and March 18, enemies of the "arbitrariness" which ruthlessly shatters a decayed system and its decrepit legal supports!
"We want law, tranquillity and order"! Indeed, the time has been well chosen to bow down before "law, tranquillity and order", to protest against the revolution, and to concur in the cheap outcry against anarchy, acts of violence and arbitrariness! It has been well chosen, at the very moment when under the protection of bayonets and cannons the revolution is officially branded as a crime, when "anarchy, acts of violence and arbitrariness" are openly put into practice through ordinances countersigned by the King, when the "law", imposed on us by the camarilla, is always used against us and never for us, when "tranquillity and order" consist in leaving the counter-revolution in "peace", so that it can re-establish its old-Prussian "order" of things.
No, gentlemen, it is not martial law that speaks through you — it is most unadulterated Odilon Barrot, translated into Berlin language, with all his narrow-mindedness, all his impotence, all his pious wishes.
There is no revolutionary who is so tactless, so childish, so cowardly, as to deny the revolution at the very moment when counter-revolution is celebrating its most glittering triumphs. If he cannot speak, he acts, and if he cannot act, he prefers to remain perfectly silent.
But is it not possible, perhaps, that the gentlemen of the National-Zeitung are pursuing a cunning policy? Are they perhaps speaking so tamely in order on the eve of the elections to win over to the opposition yet another section of the so-called moderates?
From the very first day that the counter-revolution swooped down on us, we said that from now on there are only two parties: "revolutionaries" and "counter-revolutionaries"; only two slogans: "the democratic republic" or "the absolute monarchy".(1) Everything in between is no longer a party but only a faction. The counter-revolution has done everything to make our statement come true. The elections are the most brilliant confirmation of that.
And at such a time, when the parties confront one another so sharply, when the struggle is being conducted with the greatest ferocity, when only the overwhelming superiority of organised soldiery prevents the struggle from being fought out arms in hand — at such a time all conciliation policy ceases. One needs to be Odilon Barrot himself to play the role of Odilon Barrot at such a time.
But our Berlin Barrots have their reservations, their conditions, their interpretations. They are wailers, but by no means simply wailers; they are wailers with a reservation: "that is to say", wailers from the quiet opposition:
"We, however, want new laws, such as are required by the awakened free spirit of the people and the principle of equality; we want a genuinely democratic-constitutional order" (i.e. a genuine absurdity); "we want tranquillity which rests on more than bayonets and martial laws, which is a politically and morally (!) based pacification of mind arising from the conviction, guaranteed by deeds and institutions, that every class of the people has its rights etc., etc."
We can spare ourselves the labour of completing this sentence, written in conformity with martial law. It suffices to say that these gentlemen "want" not revolution, but only a small nosegay from the results of revolution; a little democracy, but also a little constitutionalism; a few new laws, abolition of feudal institutions, bourgeois equality etc., etc.
In other words, the gentlemen of the National-Zeitung and those from the Berlin ex-Lefts, whose organ it is, want to obtain from the counter-revolution precisely that for which the counter-revolution dispersed them.
Nothing learnt and nothing forgotten![262]
These gentlemen "want" the very things they will never obtain except by a new revolution. But they do not want a new revolution.
A new revolution would bring them also quite other things than are contained in the above-quoted modest bourgeois demands. And for that reason these gentlemen are quite right in not wanting any revolution.
Fortunately, however, historical development is little concerned about what the Barrots "want" or "do not want". The Parisian prototype Barrot also "wanted" on February 24 only to achieve quite modest reforms, in particular a ministerial portfolio for himself; and he had hardly laid hands on both of these when the waves broke over him and he disappeared with all his virtuous petty-bourgeois retinue in the revolutionary deluge. Now, too, when at last he has once more obtained a ministerial post, he again "wants" various things; but nothing of what he wants is coming about. Such has ever been the fate of the Barrots. And the same thing will happen to the Berlin Barrots as well.
Under martial law or without it, they will continue to bore the public with their pious wishes. At most they will secure the adoption on paper of a few of these wishes, and finally they will be put on the shelf either by the Crown or by the people. In any case they will be put on the shelf.
Written by Marx between January 25 and 27, 1849
87. The Situation in Paris
Paris, January 28. The danger of a popular uprising has been removed for the time being by the vote of the Chamber against dealing with the prohibition of the clubs as a matter of urgency, i.e. against prohibition of the clubs in general.[263] But a new danger is emerging: the danger of a coup d'état.
Read today's issue of the National and say whether fear of a coup d'état is not visible in every line.
"Today's vote is a fatal blow for the Cabinet, and we now challenge Messrs. Odilon Barrot, Faucher and tutti quanti to hold their portfolios any longer...."
So far the National seems to be of good cheer. But listen to the end of the sentence:
"...without entering into open revolt against the spirit and letter of the Constitution!"
And what would Messrs. Odilon Barrot, Faucher and tutti quanti care about entering into open revolt against the Constitution? Since when have Barrot and Faucher been enthusiastic about the Constitution of 1848!
The National no longer threatens the Ministers; it shows them that they must resign, it shows the President[3] that he must dismiss them. And that in a country where for the last thirty years the resignation of the Ministers after such a vote has been a matter of course!
It is to be hoped, says the National, that the President of the Republic will realise that the majority and the Cabinet are in
Louis Bonaparte.—Ed.
complete disagreement, that by dismissing the Cabinet, he will strengthen the ties between him and the majority, and that there is only one obstacle to a good understanding between him and the majority: the Cabinet.
Yes, the National is trying to ensure the Ministry an honourable retreat: it would like the charge against the Ministers to be dropped. The vote is punishment enough. This extreme measure could be avoided until the Ministers have really violated the Constitution by an accomplished act.
Yes, the newspaper finally exclaims, everything makes it the dutyoî the Cabinet to resign; its own words are binding upon it to such an extent that we hesitate to believe it will dare to remain in power. Monsieur Barrot stated this evening that if the urgency motion is rejected, the Assembly itself will bear the responsibility for events. Very well, when responsibility ceases, power too must cease. If the Cabinet does not want to be responsible for events, then it must not direct them. By rejecting responsibility, Monsieur Barrot has tendered his resignation.
In short, the National does not believe in the voluntary retirement of the Ministry any more than in its dismissal by the President.
But if the Ministry wants to defy the vote of the Assembly, then there is nothing left for it except — a coup d'état.
Dissolution of the National Assembly and preparation for the restoration of the monarchy by military force, that is what lurks behind the fear of the National of the Ministry continuing in office.
Therefore the National and the red newspapers ask the people only to remain calm and to give no pretext for intervention, since any revolt can only support the Cabinet which is falling, can only be of service to the royalist counter-revolution.
That a coup d'état is becoming ever more imminent, is proved by the incidents involving Changarnier and the officers of the mobile guard.[264] The bouchers de Cavùignac[3] have no desire to let themselves be used for a royalist coup; that is why they are to be dissolved; they murmur and Changarnier threatens to have them cut to pieces, and he puts their officers under arrest.
The situation seems to become more complicated; in fact, however, it is becoming very simple, as simple as it always is on the eve of a revolution.
The conflict between the Assembly and the President together with his Ministers has reached breaking point. France can no longer exist in the state of impotence which has reigned in it for the last ten
Cavaignac's butchers.—Ed.
months; the deficit, the depressed state of industry and commerce, the pressure of taxation, which ruins agriculture, become daily more intolerable; large-scale, trenchant measures become more and more urgent, and each new Government is more impotent and inactive than the one before; until finally Odilon Barrot has carried inactivity to the extreme and for six weeks has done absolutely nothing at all.
In that way, however, he has greatly simplified the situation. After him, there can no longer be any Ministry of the decent republic. The mixed governments (the Provisional Government and the Executive Commission [265]), the Government of the National, the Government of the old Lefts — that has all been gone through, it is all worn out, used up. Now it is the turn of Thiers, and Thiers is the undisguised restoration of the monarchy.
Restoration of the monarchy or — a red republic, this is now the only alternative in France. The crisis may still be delayed for a few weeks, but it is bound to break out. Changarnier-Monk[266] with his three hundred thousand, who are entirely at his disposal for 24 hours, seems reluctant to wait any longer.
Hence the anxiety of the National. It recognises its inability to master the situation; it knows that any forcible change of government will bring its strongest enemies into power, that it is equally lost with a monarchy and a red republic. Hence its sighing for a peaceful deal, its politeness to the Ministers.
We shall very soon see whether it is necessary for the final victory of the red republic that France should go through the monarchical phase for a while. It is possible, but not probable.
But one thing is certain: the decent republic is falling to pieces, and after it — even if there are first of all some small intermezzi— the only possibility is the red republic.
88. The Situation in Paris
Cologne, January 30. When yesterday morning we announced in a special edition the imminent outbreak of a storm in Paris, wailers[267]
among the primary electors to the First Chamber wrote under our fly-sheet: It's a lie! It's no use intimidating us! and other such philistine strong expressions.
These miserable people regarded our special edition as a mere electoral manoeuvre, as if the First Chamber and the Second Chamber too, and the entire Prussian movement into the bargain, could induce us to falsify the history of the European revolution!
Stupp is an elector to the First Chamber! The rentier von Wittgenstein is an elector to the First Chamber! Chancellor von Groote is an elector to the First Chamber! And yet the revolutionary monster in Paris is capable of roaring afresh! Quelle horreur!
In our issue today, we said, inter alia, on the Paris situation: "The danger of a popular uprising has been removed for the time being by the vote of the Chamber against dealing with the prohibition of the clubs as a matter of urgency, i.e. against prohibition of the clubs in general. But a new danger is emerging: the danger of a coup
d'état.... If the Ministry wants to defy the vote of the Assembly, then there is nothing left for it except — a coup d'état. Dissolution of the National Assembly and preparation for the restoration of the monarchy by military force, that is what lurks behind the fear of the National of the Ministry continuing in office.... That a coup d'état is becoming ever more imminent, is proved by the incidents involving
Changarnier and the officers of the mobile guard.... The situation seems to become more complicated; in fact, however, it is becoming very simple, as simple as it always is on the eve of a revolution. The conflict between the Assembly and the President together with his Ministers has reached breaking point.... Restoration of the monarchy or — a red republic, this is now the only alternative in France.... The decent republic is falling to pieces, and after it — even if there are first of all some small intermezzi — the only possibility is the red republic." (1)
In the special edition we announced the crisis for the 29th. The reports of the 29th from Paris printed below will show our readers how accurate our reports were and the striking correctness of our description today of the French situation.[268]
Endnotes
[194] The reference is to the attempt by Gustav Struve and other political refugees to organise an uprising in Baden in September 1848 (see Note 84). The "Hilf Dir" military association was founded in the autumn of 1848 by Johann Philipp Becker, a leader of the democratic and working-class movement. With its Central Committee in Biel (canton of Berne), it united societies consisting mainly of artisans formed in various towns in Switzerland. The "Hilf Dir" military association pursued a democratic policy and aimed at uniting all German volunteer units in Switzerland for the purpose of establishing a republic in Germany. It was organised as a secret conspiratorial society, on the lines of those in France and Italy. The Swiss authorities, under pressure from German counter-revolutionary circles and the Imperial Government in particular, instituted proceedings against Becker and other initiators of the military association. Becker was sentenced to expulsion from the Berne canton for twelve months.
[195] The republican uprisings in Baden in April and September 1848—see Notes 78 and 84. The uprising in Val d'Intelvi (Lombardy) and the part played in it by refugees living in Switzerland — see Engels' article "The National Council" (this volume, pp. 138-53) and Note 144. The Lucerne campaigns were organised in response to the decision adopted by the reactionary Great Council of the Lucerne canton in October 1844, granting unlimited powers to the Order of Jesuits in matters of religion and public education. The liberal circles of the canton made an attempt to overthrow the Government, organising on December 8 a campaign of volunteer detachments against Lucerne. The insurgents were dispersed by government troops. The second campaign, organised for the same purpose from the territory of the neighbouring cantons on March 31, 1845, also proved a failure.
[198] On December 8, 1848, the Lausanne Workers' Association sent Engels a mandate, delegating him to the Congress (see this volume, pp. 505-06). The leaders of this Association, G. Schneeberger, Chr. Haaf and Bangert, wrote in this connection to the Berne Workers' Association on December 8, 1848: "We cannot send a delegate because of the inactivity of the Vivis Association (which recognises only the Association in Biel as the central body). Therefore we have decided to authorise our friend Engels. If, however, he cannot attend, our friend Frost will act as our delegate."
[199] The Central Committee of German Democrats (d'Ester, Reichenbach, Hexamer) was elected at the Second Democratic Congress held in Berlin from October 26 to 30, 1848. The Central Committee of German Workers in Leipzig, headed by Stephan Born, was elected at the Workers' Congress held in Berlin from August 23 to September 3, 1848. At this Congress the Workers' Fraternity, a union of workers' associations, was founded. Its programme was drawn up under the influence of Born and was concerned only with narrow craft-union demands, tfiereby diverting the workers from the revolutionary struggle. A number of its points bore the stamp of Louis Blanc's and Proudhon's Utopian ideas. Marx and Engels did not approve of the general stand taken by Born, but they refrained from publicly criticising his views, bearing in mind his endeavour to unite the workers' associations.
[216] See Note 5.
[17] Speaking of the Brandenburg Ministry, Frederick William IV said: "Either Brandenburg in the Assembly or the Assembly in Brandenburg." In its issue of November 9, 1848, the Neue Preussische Zeitung changed this to: "Brandenburg in the Assembly and the Assembly in Brandenburg."
[218] The reference is to the suppression by Windischgrätz's counter-revolutionary troops of the uprising in Prague on June 12-17, 1848, directed against the arbitrary rule of the Austrian authorities (see Engels' articles "The Prague Uprising" and "The Democratic Character of the Uprising", present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 91-93 and 119-20), and also of the uprising in Vienna in October 1848. In December 1848 Windischgrätz's army, which included the troops of the Croatian Ban Jellachich, intervened in Hungary to suppress the national liberation movement and seized Pressburg (Bratislava) and other towns. Serezhans—see Note 112. Ottochans (Ottocans) — soldiers of the Austrian border regiment formed in 1746 and stationed in Ottocac (Western Croatia).
[219] The Imperial Government formed by the Frankfurt National Assembly and headed by Archduke John of Austria took over from the former Federal Diet (see Note 63) its functions of suppressing the revolutionary movement, particularly in 224 South Germany, with military support from a number of German states including Prussia.
[6] The Holy Hermandad (Holy Brotherhood)—a league of Spanish towns set up at the end of the fifteenth century with the approbation of the King to fight against the powerful feudal lords. From the middle of the sixteenth century the armed detachments of the Holy Hermandad performed police duties. Thus the police in general was often ironically labelled the "Holy Hermandad".
[220] On July 25, 1792, the Duke of Brunswick, who was Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Prussian army fighting against revolutionary France, issued a manifesto threatening the French people to raze Paris to the ground.
[222] The reference is to Austria's participation — along with Prussia and Russia — in the first (1772) and third (1795) partitions of Poland. The third partition led to the liquidation of the Polish state. The Austrian Empire annexed a considerable part of Southern Poland and Western Ukraine (Galicia) hitherto belonging to Poland.
[223] The reference is to the events in early 1846. In February an unsuccessful attempt at a national liberation uprising was made in the Polish lands. Only in the Republic of Cracow, which from the Vienna Congress of 1815 had been under the joint control of Austria, Russia and Prussia, did the insurgents seize power on February 22 and create a National Government, which issued a manifesto abrogating all feudal obligations. The uprising was suppressed in early March 1846 and Cracow was again incorporated into the Austrian Empire. During the uprising the Austrian authorities provoked clashes between Ukrainian (Ruthenian) peasants and detachments of Polish insurgents, taking advantage of the oppressed peasants' hatred of the Polish nobility. But when the uprising was crushed, the participants in the peasant movement in Galicia were subjected to severe repressions. The Ruthenians—the name given in nineteenth-century West-European ethnographical and historical works to the Ukrainian population of Galicia and Bukovina, which was separated at the time from the bulk of the Ukrainian people.
[225] The Hussite wars, named after the Czech patriot and reformer Jan Huss (1369-1415), began with a popular uprising in Prague on July 30, 1419. The revolutionary wars of the Czech people against feudal exploitation, the Catholic Church and national enslavement continued until 1437 and ended in the defeat of the Hussites.
[226] In the battle at Poitiers (Central France) in 732, also known as the batde of Tours, the Franks led by Charles Martel, the actual ruler of the Frankish state of the Merovingians, defeated the Arabs who had invaded France from Spain. In 1241 the German and Polish knights were defeated by the Mongolian invaders near Wahlstatt (Dobf e Pole) in Silesia. But the Mongols, having sustained heavy losses in this batde and the previous campaigns, were forced to cease their advance westward from conquered Moravia, Hungary and Dalmatia and return to their East-European and Asian possessions.
[227] See Note 10.
[228] The reference is to the Slav Congress which met in Prague on June 2, 1848. It was attended by representatives of the Slav regions of the Austrian Empire. The Right, moderately liberal wing, to which Palacky and Safafik, the leaders of the Congress, belonged, sought to solve the national question through autonomy of the Slav regions within the framework of the Habsburg monarchy. The Left, radical wing (Sabina, Fric, Libelt and others) wanted joint action with the democratic movement in Germany and Hungary. The radical delegates took an active part in the popular uprising in Prague (June 12-17, 1848) and were subjected to severe reprisals. On-June 16, the moderately liberal delegates declared the Congress adjourned indefinitely. The Sabor (Diet) of the Southern Slavs opened in Agram (Zagreb) on June 5,1848. It was attended by delegates from the Croats, Serbs of the Voivodina, Slovenes and Czechs. Representatives of the liberal landowners and the top sections of the commercial bourgeoisie in Croatia prevailing at the Sabor expressed their loyalty to the Habsburgs and restricted the national programme to the demand of autonomy for the united Slav territories within the Austrian Empire. Only a small group of democratic delegates connected the struggle for the national cause with the revolutionary struggle against feudal monarchist regimes.
[229] See Note 172.
[230] See Note 10.
[231] On November 19, 1842, the democratic poet Georg Herwegh was received by Frederick William IV. Disappointed with the outcome of the audience, Herwegh wrote a letter to the King accusing him of violating his promise to introduce freedom of the press. The letter was published in the Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung on December 24, 1842, and later in other German and foreign newspapers. To counteract the influence of this letter on public opinion Frederick William IV ordered the semi-official newspapers to publish articles discrediting Herwegh. After the publication of this article of Engels' in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Lohbauer sent a statement to its editorial board in which he rejected suggestions of his involvement in publication of the feuilletons against Herwegh on the grounds that before his arrival in Berlin he had served in the General Staff in Württemberg and had nothing to do with Herwegh's expulsion. His statement was published in the supplement to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 199, January 19, 1849.
[233] The reference is to the bourgeois revolution in Neuchâtel (principality of Neuenburg) in February 1848, which put an end to its vassal dependence on the Prussian King and proclaimed Neuchâtel a republic (see Note 4).
[235] The Swiss Croats in Italy—an ironical allusion to the Swiss mercenaries in the service of counter-revolutionary governments in a number of Italian states. Enlistment agreements—see Note 172.
[236] The Ur-cantons — see Note 10.
[237] See Note 14.
[238] The continuation of this article was never written. Engels wrote two more small reports on the Swiss affairs, which were published in the same issue (No. 197) of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (see this volume, pp. 251-53). The publication of his reports from Switzerland ceased because in mid-January 1849 Engels returned to Cologne and worked as an editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
[29] According to the French Constitution adopted on November 4, 1848, the presidential elections had to take place in December 1848. The President, as head of the executive, was given wide powers by the Constitution, which reflected the growing counter-revolutionary trend among the ruling bourgeoisie, which had been frightened by the June uprising of the workers in Paris. As a result of the December 10 elections Louis Bonaparte became President of the Republic. Three years later he carried out a coup d'état.
[242] The reference is to the Prussian Association for a Constitutional Monarchy founded in June 1848 and its local branches. They were composed of Prussian landowners who had adopted bourgeois methods and customs and members of the bourgeoisie. The Association and its branches supported the counter-revolutionary policy of the Government and were labelled in the democratic press "societies of denunciators".
[244] Morison pills—pills invented by the English quack James Morison and widely advertised as a cure for all illnesses in the mid-1820s. Their main ingredient was the juice of certain tropical plants.
[245] Citizens' associations (Bürgervereine), consisting of moderate liberal elements, appeared in Prussia after the March revolution. Their aim was to preserve "law and order" within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, and to combat "anarchy", i.e. the revolutionary-democratic movement. The last article of the Constitution imposed on December 5, 1848, and the decree on the convocation of the Chambers provided for a revision of the Constitution by the two Chambers before it was finally accepted and sworn to. The Prussian ruling circles subsequently availed themselves of this provision to revise the Constitution along the lines of extending royal prerogatives and the privileges of the aristocracy and the junkers.
[1] Marx's article "The Crisis in Berlin" and his series of articles "Counter-Revolution in Berlin" were written in response to the first moves in the counter-revolutionary coup d'état in Prussia. On November 1, 1848, Frederick William IV dismissed the moderate liberal Pfuel Ministry, and an openly counter-revolutionary Ministry headed by Brandenburg and Manteuffel was formed. On November 9 a royal decree transferred the Prussian National Assembly from Berlin to Brandenburg, a small provincial town. This was the beginning of the coup d'état which ended with the dissolution of the Assembly on December 5, 1848. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung, under Marx's editorship, started a campaign to mobilise the people against the counter-revolution. In English this article was first published in the collection: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Articles from the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung". 1848-49, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was founded by Marx as a militant organ intended to reach and to influence the masses and, by their ideological and political education and consolidation, to prepare the ground for a mass party of the German proletariat. At the same time, it served to direct the activities of the Communist League which Marx and Engels founded in 1847 and regarded as the embryo of the future proletarian party. At the peak of the 1848 revolution, the League itself was too weak and numerically small to immediately rally the workers. There was no point in secret activity during the revolution, and Marx and Engels instructed League members throughout Germany to use the legal opportunities afforded by joining the workers' associations and democratic societies which were being formed. In the situation that had arisen only a proletarian revolutionary newspaper could direct and co-ordinate the activities of Communist League members and mobilise the masses to carry through the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. It was decided to publish the newspaper in Cologne, the capital of the Rhine Province, one of the most economically and politically advanced regions in Germany (here there were considerable cadres of the proletariat, and the Code Napoleon which was in force provided for greater freedom of the press than Prussian Law). The newspaper was given the name of Neue Rheinische Zeitung to emphasise that it was to continue the revolutionary-democratic traditions of the Rheinische Zeitung edited by Marx in 1842 and 1843. Taking account of the specific circumstances, with no independent mass workers' party in Germany, Marx, Engels and their followers entered the political scene as the Left, actually proletarian, wing of the democratic movement. This determined the stand of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which began to appear under the subtitle Organ der Demokratie (Organ of Democracy). The first issue of the newspaper appeared in the evening of May 31, 1848, and was dated June 1. The editorial board consisted of Karl Marx (editor-in-chief), Heinrich Bürgers, Ernst Dronke, Georg Weerth, Ferdinand and Wilhelm Wolff and Frederick Engels, joined in October 1848 by the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath. All the editors were members of the Communist League. The editorial board was known for its unanimity of views, smooth working and precise division of functions. Besides reading and answering letters and helping the editor-in-chief, each member had to deal with a definite range of questions. The editorial board had its correspondents in different parts of Germany and abroad. It established regular contacts with a number of democratic periodicals in other countries. As a rule, Marx and Engels wrote the editorials formulating the newspaper's stand on the most important questions of the revolution. These were marked "* Köln" or "** Köln". Sometimes editorial articles marked with one asterisk were printed in other sections under the heading of News from Italy, France, Hungary, Switzerland and other countries. In addition to editorials, Engels wrote articles on other subjects, including the course of the revolutionary liberation movement in Italy, the revolutionary war in Hungary, the political life of Switzerland, and so on. Wilhelm Wolff contributed articles on the agrarian question, on the condition of the peasants and the peasant movement, particularly in Silesia. He was also responsible for the current events section. Georg Weerth wrote feuilletons and Ernst Dronke contributed various reports (including reports from Paris). The only article which Heinrich Bürgers wrote for the Neue Rheinische Zeitungv/as practically rewritten by Marx. He was more successful as the newspaper's representative at workers' meetings. Freiligrath published his revolutionary poems in the newspaper. The Neue Rheinische Zeitungv/as a daily (from September 1848 it appeared every day except Monday). On some days a second edition was put out in order to supply the readers with prompt information on all the most important revolutionary developments in Germany and Europe; supplements were printed when there was too much material for the four pages of the issue, and special supplements and special editions in the form of leaflets carried the latest and most important news. Even in the first months of the newspaper's existence the bourgeois shareholders started to complain of the consistent revolutionary line of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, its militant internationalism and political denunciations of the Government. Its editors were persecuted by the Government and attacked in the feudal monarchist and liberal bourgeois press. Shareholders were especially scared off by articles in defence of the June 1848 uprising of the Paris proletariat. To make Marx's stay in the Rhine Province more difficult, the Cologne authorities, on instructions from Berlin, refused to reinstate him in his rights as a Prussian citizen (which Marx had renounced in 1845), and on several occasions instituted legal proceedings against him and other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. On September 26, 1848, when a state of siege was declared in Cologne, several democratic newspapers, including the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, were suspended. To avoid arrest, Engels, Dronke and Ferdinand Wolff had to leave Germany for a time. Wilhelm Wolff stayed in Cologne but for several months lived in hiding. When the state of siege was lifted the paper resumed publication on October 12, thanks to the great efforts of Marx who contributed all his ready money to the paper. Until January 1849, the main burden of the work, including editorial articles, lay on Marx's shoulders since Engels had to stay out of Germany (in France and Switzerland). Persecution of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung editors by the legal authorities and the police was particularly intensified after the counter-revolutionary coup in Prussia in November-December 1848. On February 7, 1849, Marx, Engels and Hermann Korff, the responsible publisher, were summoned to appear before a jury in Cologne, and the next day Marx, together with Schapper and lawyer Schneider, was brought to trial as the leader of the Rhenish District Committee of Democrats. But in both cases Marx and his associates were acquitted thanks to skilful defence. The failure of these prosecutions compelled the authorities to resort to other means for the prohibition of the revolutionary periodical. In May 1849, when the counter-revolution went into the offensive all over Germany, the Prussian Government issued an order for Marx's expulsion from Prussia on the grounds that he had not been granted Prussian citizenship. Marx's expulsion and new repressions against other editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung put an end to the publication of the newspaper. Its last issue (No. 301), printed in red ink, came out on May 19, 1849. In their farewell address to the workers, the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung said, "Their last word everywhere and always will be: emancipation of the working classF'
[246] The reference j s t o o n e 0f the Prussian associations founded by the Right forces after the March 1848 revolution in Germany. These associations functioned as organs of the junkers' counter-revolution (see Note 242). "With God for King and Fatherland"—a phrase from the decree on the organisation of the army reserve promulgated by Frederick William III on March 17, 1813.
[247] An allusion to the suppression of the Silesian weavers' uprising in June 1844.
[248] An allusion to Wühler (agitators) and Heuler (wailers) (see Note 127).
[249] 252 253 255 256 In their works of the 1840s and 1850s, prior to Marx's elaboration of his theory of surplus value, Marx and Engels used the terms "value of labour", "price of labour", "sale of labour" which, as Engels noted in 1891 in the introduction to Marx's pamphlet Wage Labour and Capital, "from the point of view of the later works were inadequate and even wrong". After Marx had shown that the worker sells to the capitalist not his labour but his labour power, Marx and Engels used more precise terms—"value of labour power", "price of labour power" and "sale of labour power".
[251] In Britain Charles Stuart (King Charles I) was executed in 1649 and James Stuart (King James II) fled in 1688. In France the Bourbons were overthrown twice, in 1792 and in 1830. In Belgium William of Orange, King of the Netherlands, was overthrown in 1830 and Belgium was proclaimed a kingdom independent of Holland, p. 263
[253] The trade agreement which Prussia (on behalf of the German Customs Union) concluded with the Netherlands on January 21, 1839, established low import duties on Dutch sugar, thus causing considerable harm to the Prussian sugar industry and the trade of German towns.
[254] The reference is to the joint actions of Austria, Prussia and Russia against the Cracow Republic during the national liberation uprising in the free city of Cracow, and the agreement concluded by these powers on incorporating Cracow into the Austrian Empire (see Note 223).
[256] The German Confederation—an association of German states formed by the Vienna Congress on June 8, 1815. It initially included 34 states and 4 free cities with a feudal-absolutist system of government. The Confederation consolidated the political and economic fragmentation of Germany and retarded its development.
[257] The reference is to the refugees who fled to Prussia from the free city of Cracow and from Galicia, which was under Austrian domination, after the suppression of the Cracow uprising and of the Ukrainian peasant movement in Galicia in 1846 (see Notes 223 and 254).
[258] Engels refers to the Polish national liberation insurrection of 1830-31. The majority of its participants were revolutionary nobles and most of its leaders came from the aristocracy. The insurrection was suppressed by Russian troops, with the support of Prussia and Austria. After the troops sent by Nicholas I captured Warsaw in September 1831, the remnants of the insurgent army crossed the Prussian and Austrian borders early in October and were interned there.
[59] Zeitung No. 136, November 7, 1848. Possibly Engels wrote about the conference decision in the above-mentioned report, which did not appear in the newspaper (see Note 56).
[260] Schilda—the name of a town whose inhabitants, portrayed in the sixteenth-century popular German satirical book Schildbürger, typified philistine narrow-mindedness and dullness.
[262] Nothing learnt and nothing forgotten. This phrase is commonly thought to have been coined by Talleyrand in reference to the Bourbons. Its origin, however, goes back to Admiral de Panât who, in 1796, said about the royalists: "Personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien prendre" ("Nobody has been able to forget anything or learn anything"). For the waiters mentioned above see Note 127.
[263] On January 26, 1849, Faucher, Minister of the Interior in the Government of the liberal monarchist Odilon Barrot, submitted to the Constituent Assembly a draft Bill on the right of association. Its first clause ran as follows: "Clubs are prohibited." Faucher demanded that the Constituent Assembly should immediately discuss his Bill, but the deputies refused. On January 27 Ledru-Rollin, supported by 230 deputies, charged the Government with violating the Constitution and demanded its resignation. However, due to the votes of monarchists and moderate republicans, the draft Bill on the right of association (better known as the draft Bill on clubs) was passed by the National Assembly on March 21, 1849. This was a serious blow to freedom of assembly and association and above all to workers' associations.
[264] The mobile guard was set up by a decree of the Provisional Government on February 25, 1848, to fight against the revolutionary masses. Its units consisted mainly of lumpenproletarians and were used to crush the June uprising of Paris workers. After Louis Bonaparte was elected President (December 10, 1848), the Government, fearing that the mobile guard might side with the republicans, decided to disband it. They curtailed its numbers and deprived it of many privileges: some of the guards were enrolled as soldiers in army units, and many officers were deprived of their rank. This gave rise to disturbances in the mobile guard, and soon afterwards it was disbanded.
[265] See Note 104.
[266] An allusion to the similarity between the schemes for restoring the monarchy in December 1848, when the Orleanist Changarnier assumed command of the national guard and the Paris garrison, and the part played by General Monk in the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660.
[267] See Note 127.
[268] The reports of January 29, 1849, from Paris printed with an introductory article by Marx, described the general excitement in Paris caused by rumours that the Government was going to forcibly dissolve the National Assembly. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung correspondent wrote that Paris was flooded with soldiers but that the mobile guard had sided with the workers. Louis Napoleon, he reported, had left the palace and joined his troops who received him with a gloomy silence or even exclamations such as "Long live the Red Republic!" Only the bourgeois 1st Legion greeted him with "Long live Bonaparte!", "Long live the Ministers!" Everybody was waiting for news from the National Assembly which was to determine the subsequent course of events. The day before, the Moniteur had reported that at the session of the Cabinet of Ministers President Louis Bonaparte declared that he fully supported the Government.
[3] This article, as well as a number of other reports below, was written by Engels during his forced stay in Switzerland. On September 26, 1848, a state of siege was declared in Cologne and an order was issued for the arrest of some of the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, including Engels. Engels emigrated from Prussia to Belgium, where he was arrested by the Brussels police and on October 4 deported to France. After a short stay in Paris Engels went on foot to Switzerland (see his travel notes "From Paris to Berne" in Vol. 7 of the present edition, pp. 507-29). About November 9 Engels arrived in Berne via Geneva and Lausanne and remained there until January 1849. While in emigration he regularly sent to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung articles and various items of information.
[252] An allusion to the words from Frederick William IV's speech on March 6, 1848,at the last sitting of the United Commission of the Estates formed of representatives of the provincial diets: "Stand like a mighty wall, united by your confidence in Your King, Your best friend."
[15] The riot which took place on October 24, 1848, in Freiburg (Fribourg) was organised by the Catholic priests led by Bishop Marilley, and aimed at overthrowing the democratic Government of the canton. It was quickly suppressed.